


Smoke & Mirrors

by doodle



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe - Twins, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asthma, Families of Choice, M/M, Murder, Panic Attacks, Sibling Rivalry, Stilinski Twins, Warning: Kate Argent, mirror twins, teenage angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 09:57:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 68,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4430852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doodle/pseuds/doodle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Mirror twin, actually,” Stiles corrected automatically. “It’s a subset of identical, but we’re not identical in the normal way. I'm the mirror image of him, or him me, whichever way you want to look at it."</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Stiles has spent his entire life in the shadow of JJ, his popular, captain of the lacrosse team, jackass twin brother. Now he only has to make it through the summer until JJ goes to college. </p><p>Easier said than done when JJ starts hooking up with Stiles' crush, Derek Hale, and there's a dead body in the preserve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke & Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Teen Wolf Big Bang (teenwolfbigbang @ LJ), and if you've read anything of mine from any other fandom BB challenges, you'll be in no way surprised to see I wrote waaaay past the minimum word count. What started off as writing out some douchey-sibling feelings turned into this plotty monster and I (mostly) regret nothing. While this is not the first thing I've written in this fandom, this is the first thing that anyone other than twofourteen has read, or that has been posted. 
> 
> Thank you to the lovely Amy for the super last minute beta, which for a fic of this length was a serious challenge. Any major mistakes you find are mine as I rewrote a couple of scenes after she was done with it. 
> 
> And last but by no means least, a HUGE thanks to adobejunkie for the amazing art work. Go look at it and heap praise upon it. AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/4420487 & LJ: http://adobejunkie.livejournal.com/15630.html

Stiles froze.

A pair of strong, hairy arms wrapped around his waist to join the solid line of muscle that pressed against his back. It was just what he needed on a Friday night, getting bad-touched in the gas station store.

“Where’d you go this morning?” A vaguely familiar voice rumbled in his ear. “Last night was fun, I thought we could have a repeat performance before you left. Let me really express my gratitude.”

“And that’s a whole world of no,” Stiles said, as a pair of hips pressed against his ass. He squirmed out of the grip of what had to be one of JJ’s hook ups, because Stiles – much to his dismay – hadn’t spent a night of wanton debauchery with anyone. Ever.

It explained why JJ hadn’t been home the night before, even though Stiles and their dad had only picked him up from the airport that morning. JJ had spent a year travelling South America before college. That still didn’t explain why he’d been mistaken for JJ. Stiles might have been wearing one of JJ’s old beanies, but he hadn’t been able to pass for JJ since first grade, not even with his buzzed hair hidden. Stiles was just too twitchy and flaily and uncool.

It had to be someone new in town.

“What’s wrong?” They asked, reaching for Stiles again.

Stiles was too busy trying to avoid more awkward groping to identify the voice. Then he turned and his heart stopped in his chest, clenching painfully.

 _That_ was why he knew the voice. JJ’s hook up was Derek Hale.

Derek Hale, who’d rocked back into town six months ago. His family moved away from Beacon Hills when Stiles was thirteen after their house in the preserve had burned to the ground, fortunately without any casualties. Derek had been rebuilding the old Hale house and Stiles had been pining from afar. He’d finally built up the courage to ask Derek out for coffee and made the mistake of telling JJ the day before, when their dad had gone to work and JJ had asked, _so little bro, you finally get some action while I was away?_

“I’m not JJ,” Stiles said, stepping further out of Derek’s reach, stomach threatening to dump his lunch all over the gas station floor.  

Derek frowned, eyebrows forming a super angry V over his eyes. "What?"

“Thanks JJ, no _really_ , thanks,” Stiles muttered to the ceiling before looking back at Derek Hale, man of his crushed dreams. “I'm Stiles.”

Stiles pulled off the beanie and Derek’s frown got impossibly deeper. “You cut your hair?”

Stiles resisted the urge to claw his face off in frustration, because seriously, fuck his life. "My hair is always like this. I’m JJ's _twin_."

Derek stared for a long minute, mouth parting slightly to show just a hint of his adorable bunny teeth. Stiles stared at the Fruit Roll Ups just over Derek’s shoulder before he was distracted into forgetting that Derek was actually trying to sex up his brother. Again.

“JJ has an identical twin?” Derek finally asked, proving himself the only person in town who didn’t know that JJ had a defective, 23-minute younger, copy of himself running around.

"This is definitely a new low for me,” Stiles lamented, trying not to focus on the shattering of all his Derek Hale-shaped hopes and dreams of sex and dates and cuddling on couches. “Not just having to explain that no I am not JJ, but my actual existence as well.”

“Wow, I’m sorry,” Derek said, looking at the floor. “I wouldn’t have -- ” he waved at Stiles’ body in a manner that he could only interpret as _tried to sex you up in the gas station,_ “--if I’d known.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Stiles waved him off. It wasn’t like _that_ was a new kind of blow to his ego, it came pretty much as standard with being related to JJ. “You are not the first and probably not the last to get groper’s regret for copping a feel off the wrong twin.”

“No!” Derek said, eyes wide. “I wouldn’t have touched you, like that, without your permission.”

“Oh, right,” Stiles replied, taking a moment to parse that new and chivalrous response. It was both awesome – proving Derek really was a good guy – and terrible – because he was a good guy that Stiles couldn’t have. “Well, that’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

Derek nodded.

“And wow, this is awkward,” Stiles laughed humourlessly into the dragging silence.  

Derek pointed over his shoulder, feet shuffling. “I should leave you to it.”

“Sure,” Stiles agreed, nodding slowly and backing away. It was probably best to end the interaction before it got any worse, not that Stiles was sure how it could, and fake his own death in order to never have to see his failed crush ever again.

“Er, wait,” Derek said, foiling Stiles’ escape plan. “Can you tell JJ thanks, for me?”

Stiles blinked. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable delivering a ‘you rocked my world last night’ message to my twin.”

Derek’s cheeks flushed an adorable bright red and Stiles told his heart to shut the fuck up as it pitter-pattered around his chest, clearly not having got the message that Derek had literally not known Stiles existed.

“No, that’s not – I wouldn’t.”

Stiles waited.

Derek took a deep breath, nostrils flaring. “I wanted to say thank you for telling me that Cora was safe. We haven’t heard anything from her other than the occasional postcard since she ran away a year ago. It means a lot, to the whole family, to know that she’s safe, and happy.”

“Oh, yeah,” Stiles said, scrubbing a hand over his head. It was why JJ had gone to the old Hale house in the first place, after telling their dad he’d met Cora Hale in Argentina. The sheriff had insisted that JJ let Derek know his runaway sister was safe, even if JJ wouldn’t give up her location. “I guess that makes sense. Dad got a little crazy this last year every time JJ was late checking in by text or e-mail and he mostly knew where JJ was.”

Derek quirked an eyebrow. “You weren’t travelling, with JJ?”

Stiles shook his head, and carefully edited the truth to the least loser-ish version of it. The one that didn’t involve telling Derek that unlike JJ, he’d only just graduated from high school because he’d had to repeat the first grade. “No, I stayed in town.”

Derek nodded, looking thoughtful. “Guess I’m not going crazy after all. JJ said he only got back yesterday, but I thought I recognized his face but not – but identical twins explains it.”

"Mirror twin, actually,” Stiles corrected automatically. “It’s a subset of identical, but we’re not identical in the normal way. I'm the mirror image of him, or him me, whichever way you want to look at it. Though if you ask JJ he'll say I'm the mirror as I'm the back to front one."

"Back to front?"

"Yeah, I'm the lefty and he’s right-handed,” Stiles explained, with a quick jazz hands. “All of the non-sun related moles we have are on opposite sides, and the real biggie is my insides are back to front, which is pretty rare even for mirror twins. So, my heart is on the right and stuff. I had this doctor last year who hadn’t read my full medical history and wouldn’t believe I had an appendectomy when I was fourteen because the scar’s on the ‘wrong’ side… and now I’m boring you and will stop talking as you were looking for JJ, not me."

“No, it’s okay,” Derek smiled, small and shy, making Stiles’ insides start doing back-flips. “You’re not boring.”

“No, it’s fine.” Stiles laughed nervously, taking a step back. “I need to go. I’ll tell JJ you said thanks.”

There was a reason Stiles had been crushing on Derek Hale from afar, and had spent six months entertaining the daydream that Derek might actually find him interesting, attractive, and dateable enough to accept an invitation for coffee. And now there was a reason for Stiles to get the hell out of there because he’d never be any of those things to Derek, not after he’d had JJ.

He paid for his gas and left, driving to Scott’s instead of his house.

//

“Dude,” Stiles groaned, face-planting on to Scott’s bed. “New contender for world’s worst twin mix up ever.”

Scott paused his game of Halo. “Worse than the time Tara almost arrested you?”

Stiles buried his face in Scott’s pillow in the vain hope he might be able to smother himself in it. “Yes.”

“Sucks.” Scott said, and then being 100% more awesome than his actual flesh and blood brother, squeezed the back of Stiles’ calf and left him alone to wallow / kill himself in peace.

When Scott came back ten minutes later he was armed with all the supplies Stiles needed to eat his feelings – a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew, a plate of Mrs. McCall’s homemade empanadas, still steaming from the microwave, and a one-pound bag of Twizzlers.

“Thanks man,” Stiles murmured, burning his tongue on an empanada and regretting nothing because he had feelings that needed to buried with fried food and sugar.

“You want to talk about it?” Scott asked, a couple of hours later when the food was gone and they’d lost count of how many games of Mario Kart they’d played.

“Derek Hale came onto me at the gas station.”

Scott blinked. “Duuuuude.”

“I stole one of JJ’s stupid beanies because I was sick of having to tell people I tripped over my own fucking feet and hit my head on the curb and apparently they fucked last night. It must have been good, because Derek was pretty bummed that JJ cut out this morning before they could do it all over again.”

“JJ hooked up with Derek?”

“Yeah. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any more awkward, I took the beanie off and he asked if I’d cut my hair. Derek Hale is actually so far out of my league that he doesn’t even know I exist. Like, literally. I had to tell him I was JJ’s twin.”

Scott sighed, hard and angry. “JJ knew you were into Derek, didn’t he?”

“What does it matter?” Stiles shrugged, because it was his own fault for telling JJ he was going to ask Derek out for coffee when he asked about Stiles’ love life, for not going with him to tell Derek about Cora. “It’s not like I stood a chance with him at all. If he was into spazzy nerds he wouldn’t have hooked up with JJ.”

“Stiles, man,” Scott said, turning to face Stiles. “That does not make it okay. It’s like Heather all over again! You did stand a chance, because you’re awesome, and JJ stole that from you. Like _always_. I know he’s your brother and everything but he’s a total jackass.”

Stiles’ felt a bit like the Grinch, his heart doubling in size inside his chest with love for Scott and gratitude that Scott would always be the one thing Stiles had that JJ couldn’t take away. “You’re my brother, man. I might share my genetics with JJ, but you’re my _real_ brother. You’ve always had my back, even if you do have way more faith in my sexual appeal than is realistic.”

Scott snorted. “You have to stop believing that bullshit. You are _identical_ to JJ physically and a way better person, which is why he always cockblocks you, because if he didn’t you’d be serious competition.”

Stiles laughed until he was shaking with it, tears rolling down his face and sucking in wheezing breaths. Scott pulled him into a hug, burying Stiles’ wet face in his shoulder as the laughter stopped but the tears didn’t. “I thought a year in South America might have changed him, or something, make him give a crap about me or I don’t know, anything. Stupid, right?”

“No, man.” Scott shook his head and hugged Stiles tighter. “You want to crash here tonight? Mom’s on the night shift, she won’t mind.”

“Thanks, bro.”

//

“Where’s dad?” Stiles asked JJ, who was sprawled across the couch, the rest of the house silent. “He called like an hour ago telling me to get my ass home.”

What his dad had actually said amounted to a not-so-subtle guilt trip at bailing on spending time with JJ less than 48 hours after he got back into the country from a year away. Stiles hadn’t pointed out that JJ hadn’t come home at all his first night back or that the last thing Stiles wanted to do with JJ was spend time with him, because when it came to the Stilinski twins their dad had some serious selective blindness.

JJ lifted his arm off his face and blinked up at Stiles. “Work? I think. He got a call, I wasn’t really paying attention.”

“Of course you weren’t.” Stiles rolled his eyes and muttered, “Should have stayed at Scott’s.”

“What?” JJ asked, sitting up, hair standing on end.

“Nothing,” Stiles sighed. “You and dad eat?”

JJ shook his head, vaulting over the back of the couch and landing perfectly. “Nah, you didn’t leave anything.”

“The refrigerator is literally full of food,” Stiles said, face-palming as he went into the kitchen. “I went grocery shopping yesterday.”

JJ laughed, slinging his arm over Stiles’ shoulder. “You know me and dad are fucking useless in the kitchen. Dad burns toast and I burn coffee.” He bumped Stiles’ towards the refrigerator. “We need our Mama Stiles to take care of us or we’d starve.”

Stiles banged his head against the refrigerator door. He hated being called Mama Stiles even more than he hated SS, or worse, his _actual_ name. JJ had started calling him that when they were eight, when mom had started teaching Stiles how to cook and bake, when he’d spent all the time he wasn’t at the McCalls with her, folding laundry, sewing, knitting, gardening, watching or reading sci-fi. After mom died JJ had stopped, until they were 13 and Stiles was sick of eating take out and never having any clean underwear and started, well, being mom.

“What do you want, then?” Stiles caved, opening the refrigerator so JJ could see what was inside.

JJ rested his chin on Stiles’ shoulder, knocking their heads together with a laugh. “Duh! Talk about a dumb question. I’ve been away a whole year, what do you think I want? I’ve been dreaming about Mama Stiles’ mac and cheese for weeks.”

“Fine,” Stiles agreed, elbowing JJ to get him out of his space. “I’ll make mac and cheese if you get out of my way.”

JJ punched Stiles in the shoulder then left the kitchen, calling, “Thanks, bro!” Before the sound of the TV filled the house.

Stiles rolled his neck and shoulders until they cracked, then started cooking. He tried not to dwell on JJ, but his brain wasn’t known for doing what he wanted it to and wouldn’t let it go.

It wasn’t as if Stiles had really expected JJ to instantly confess that he’d fucked Derek, but that didn’t stop it from pissing him off. Even if it did hurt, JJ having sex with people Stiles was interested in wasn’t exactly a new pattern of behavior. Not gloating about it to Stiles was, which meant he probably wanted Stiles to make an ass out of himself by asking Derek out after he’d fucked his twin.

“So, I hear you hooked up with Derek Hale,” Stiles accused as JJ came into the kitchen, obviously lured by the pinging of the oven timer and the smell of food.

“Yeeeeeah.”

Stiles hadn’t meant the words to come out, but the way JJ’s eyes shifted left to right as he slid onto a stool at the counter said everything Stiles needed to hear.  “How do you know about that?”

Stiles put the hot casserole dish down on the counter with a thump, trying to breathe through the swell of anger and the temptation to launch the dish at JJ’s head. “He thought I was you at the gas station yesterday.”

“Is that why you weren’t home last night, SS?” JJ laughed, waggling his eyebrows. “You finally getting your V card punched pretending to be me?”

“Yeah,” Stiles snapped, focusing all his aggression into spooning mac and cheese into two dishes and a Tupperware. “Because I can’t imagine anything more fun than having rapey sex with someone while they call out _your_ name.”

“Whatever ever floats your boat, SS.”

Stiles slammed one of the dishes down in front of JJ. “So did you forget that I told you literally just before you left to go tell him about Cora that I was going to ask him out for coffee or did you just not give a fuck?”

“Come on, don’t be like that.”

“Like what?” Stiles asked, gripping the edge of the counter so hard his knuckles turned white. “Be disappointed that the first thing my ‘brother’ does after getting back into town is fuck the guy I explicitly told him I was interested in and was going to ask out and didn’t even have the fucking courtesy to tell me not to make an _ass_ of myself?”

“Look, I was going to tell you.”

Stiles snorted.

“I swear!” JJ said, holding his hands up. “After dinner I was going to bust out the good Mexican tequila while dad’s out, loosen you up a little before I told you. It’s not like I went over there planning to fuck him. I told him about Cora being safe; he was grateful and wanted to express that gratitude with mind-blowing orgasms. What was I supposed to do, turn him down?”

Stiles clawed at his head, wishing he had hair to pull. “Yes!”

JJ made a face. “Are you serious?”

Stiles took a deep breath, and then another one, and busied his hands with sealing the Tupperware of dinner for dad shut. “I don’t even know why I thought you’d understand. Or y’know, care.”

“Stiles!” JJ whined, eyes going wide, because he really didn’t get that he’d done something wrong, just another thing in the long list of crappy stuff he’d done to Stiles and not even realized.

Stiles grabbed the Tupperware and left. “I’m taking this to dad.”

//

As the Sheriff, his dad didn’t have to work the swing or night shift at the Sheriff’s department, because technically, he was always on call if there was a major incident. As his dad was an awesome leader, he didn’t believe in making his deputies or civilian staff work a shift he wasn’t willing to do himself. And because even when the sheriff was playing the system he played it fairly, he’d pulled a double working the Friday night shift and then Saturday’s day shift to cover the Major League Lacrosse game, all so he could take a week off for Father-Sons pre-college bonding.

Aside from signalling a week of horrible attempts to try and find activities that all three of them at least tolerated, if not enjoyed, it meant that his dad should have had a clear twelve hours free of the station. Which meant that the call JJ had stupidly, frustratingly, ignored, was an incident big enough to call the Sheriff in for.

“Dad here?” Stiles asked Tara as he crossed the bullpen, which was way busier than it should have been at seven on a Saturday night.

“Hi Stiles,” Tara replied with a distracted wave, eyes focused on her computer screen. “You’re in luck, he just got back. Make sure you knock first.”

He just got back? _Interesting_.

“Hey daddy-o,” Stiles said, slipping into the sheriff’s office and ignoring Tara’s instruction. If he knocked, then his dad would have time to hide all the fun stuff he never wanted Stiles to see.

“Are you ever going to learn to knock?” his dad sighed, rubbing a hand over his face.

Stiles grinned, dropping into the chair opposite his dad’s desk, trying to scan all the open files as he closed them and hid them under a heap of regular, and boring, paperwork. “Are you ever going to let me see interesting case files?”

“Yes,” his dad said, leaning forward. Stiles fist-pumped. “When you graduate the police academy and successfully apply for a position as a Beacon County deputy.”

Stiles slumped back into his chair and pouted. “You’re such a troll, dad.”

His dad grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Stiles nodded at the case files, in which he’d only managed to catch a missing persons report before his dad closed them.

“Everything okay? I got home and JJ said you’d been called back in.”

His dad raised his eyebrows. “And where exactly have you been since yesterday?”

“At Scott’s, where else would I be? And don’t think I don’t know a deflection when I see one.”

“Good,” he pointed. “Then you’re smart enough to know to leave it alone.”

Stiles snorted. His dad could keep on wishing, not that it was likely to do him any good after nineteen years of failing to break Stiles’ naturally overenthusiastic curiosity.

“And who’s to say you were at Scott’s?” his dad said, in his way too casual voice that meant he had suspicions and lots of them. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’re interested in someone new, even if you won’t tell your old man who they are so he can run the appropriate background checks.”

Stiles threw his head back and laughed. If only. “Thanks for the vote of confidence dad, but _really_ , I was at Scott’s.”

“You know you can tell me, son,” his dad said, leaning forward and so sincere it was actually painful. “Whoever this someone is, I promise, I won’t judge you. Unless they’re my age, or a convicted felon, then we’re going to have words.”

“Oh my god, this new diversion tactic is terrible. Stop it,” Stiles moaned, sliding down further in his chair and hoping the floor would open up and swallow him whole. “There is no someone, I struck out, the end. And _oh look_ , I brought you dinner.” He waved the Tupperware in front his face, trying to hide behind it. “Mac and cheese with extra kale. Now tell me why you’re in the station four hours after getting off a double or I will only let you eat the kale.”

“Son, if they can’t see how special –.”

And _that_ needed to stop before it got started and Stiles pointed out that no one would ever see how  ‘special’ he was when JJ was jumping them first.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I already had the ‘you’re a very special snowflake’ pep talk from Scott. But you know what would really make me feel better? You telling me what you’re working on.”

His dad gave him _the_ look. “Nice try.”

“Hey, it will soothe my emotional turmoil at being turned down, yet again, by distracting me from the fact that even though JJ and I are supposed to have identical DNA, he got my share of the Stilinski sex appeal.”

“Son -,” his dad sighed, with his saddest _why do you have such low self-esteem son_ eyes.

 _Abort abort_ screamed Stiles’ brain, because his dad’s selective blindness 100% included the fact that the whole universe agreed on one thing: JJ was the better Stilinski twin.

“While I already know it’s to do with a missing person, I need a little more to go on.”

His dad looked at him. Stiles gave him his most carefree, _you love me_ , grin in return.

“You’re a menace,” he accused.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing?” Stiles beamed, knowing he’d won. His dad used to call mom the same thing when she was driving him insane, right before he gave in to whatever she wanted.

“If I don’t tell you then you’re just going to make trouble for yourself and I need you to promise me you’re not going to do anything stupid.”

“I promise,” Stiles said solemnly. And 90% truthfully.  

“I’m being serious, Stiles,” his dad warned in his most serious voice. Stiles straightened up in his chair. “No sneaking around in the middle of the night trying to play cop, okay?”

“I promise dad,” Stiles swore, because there was no point in trying to argue that all those times ‘Stiles’ had been sneaking around after curfew it had actually been JJ. One, Stiles didn’t get caught, and two, Stiles actually listened when their dad used his serious voice.

His dad got up and shut the door, even though no one in the station was stupid enough to listen in. “A body was found in the preserve last night. It looks like an animal attack, but -.”

“But?”

“Something about it doesn’t sit right. The girl went missing three days ago and by all accounts she had no reason to run away, but the attack was last night.”

“Full moon,” Stiles mused. His dd always worked the night shift on full moons; the increase in natural light always meant more crimes, especially in areas with no streetlamps.

“Exactly, and she was found pretty close to the edge that borders the residential area.”

Which all added up to a really horrible conclusion. “You don’t think an animal did it?”

Beacon Hills wasn’t a hotbed of crime. The Sherriff’s office mostly dealt with petty theft, B&Es, DUIs and traffic accidents with the occasional instances of drugs, domestic violence and sexual assaults.

“I think I need to wait to see what the autopsy says, and that is enough information for you.”

“C’mon dad,” Stiles pleaded.

His dad was not persuaded. The opposite, actually, as he pulled out the big guns: serious sheriff voice _and_ serious dad face. “I don’t want you running in the preserve until further notice, okay? Animal or person, I don’t want you out there alone. You run on the street, or along the main road beside the preserve, no music and you have your phone on and charged at all times. You hear me?”

“Yeah, okay dad. I’ll be safe, I promise.”

And this time he 100% meant it. If his dad was being that serious then it meant whatever happened to that girl had been bad. _Really_ bad.

“Good,” his dad said, opening the office door. “Now get out of here. I’ve got work to do and you’ve got a brother to spend time with.”

//

Stiles went home, but did not spend any time with JJ who had eaten more mac and cheese than Stiles thought was humanly possible and gone out, presumably for more thank you sleepovers with Derek.

Stiles banged his head against the refrigerator. “I will not murder my twin. I will not murder my twin. I will _not_ murder my twin even though I really fucking want to.”

Instead, he packed up the last of the leftovers and did the dishes.

//

The universe obviously hated Stiles for kicking kittens or something in a previous life, because when he went to the hospital the next morning to drop off the last of the leftover mac and cheese for Mrs. McCall’s lunch, the first person he bumped into was Derek Hale. Literally.

“Oof,” Stiles gasped, flailing to get his balance back before he ended up on his ass. Forget Superman, Derek’s muscles _were_ made of steel or something.

“Sorry,” Derek apologized once it was clear that Stiles’ excellent windmill impression had been a success. “I didn’t mean to –.”

“No, no,” Stiles interrupted. “It’s okay, I’m a known klutz and I wasn’t really looking where I was going.”

It was true. He’d been staring at Derek’s Camaro in the parking lot and saying a silent prayer to whatever deity may have been pulling the puppet strings of his life to cut him a break for once.

The jerk.

Derek nodded towards the hospital doors. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah.” Stiles held up the bag with Mrs. McCall’s lunch in it. “I’m just dropping this off for my friend’s mom. She’s a nurse and always works late Saturdays, so I’m bringing her some leftovers for lunch because she never has time to make it for herself.”

The corners of Derek’s lips curved up in a bright, wide smile and Stiles’ treacherous stomach did back-flips at the sight of it. “That’s really nice of you.”

“It’s nothing.” Stiles shrugged. “The cafeteria food is crap, I made too much mac and cheese last night and hey, it’s the least I can do. I ate like, fourteen of her empanadas the other night.”

Derek laughed and it was still the most beautiful fucking thing Stiles had seen in his life, and he’d spent four years seriously crushing on the walking perfection that was Lydia Martin. It was Derek laughing in the local coffee shop that had made Stiles want him in the first place, way back when he’d reappeared in town to rebuild the old Hale house. “I feel like I should be asking if mac and cheese is adequate repayment for fourteen empanadas.”

“Okay, only someone who has never had my mac and cheese would ask that question. It’s a top secret Stilinski family recipe and it has been know to blow minds.”

Derek smirked. “That sounds pretty impressive.”

“I am pretty impressive,” Stiles shot back. Then he realized what he’d actually said and his cheeks tried to spontaneously combust as he tried, and failed, to back peddle. “In the kitchen, I mean. I’m a good cook.”

“Then I guess you should make me something. Let me be the judge.”

“Er, yeah,” Stiles said, trying not to choke on his own tongue, because that sounded almost like a date. “I could, I mean, we could do that.”

Derek grinned, nodding like he didn’t know he’d just liquefied Stiles’ brain. “Good. Well, I should let you get that inside, but I just wanted to say sorry, again.”

“Sorry?”

“For the gas station. It really wasn’t okay for me to touch you like that without your permission. I don’t normally do that.”

“It’s okay,” Stiles assured, thought it obviously wasn’t. Not because Derek accidentally bad-touched him without permission, but because Stiles _wanted_ Derek sneaking a feel in the gas station, only without the part where he thought Stiles was JJ. Though maybe, just maybe, Stiles could change that with his awesome kitchen skills. “It was a totally genuine, and understandable, misunderstanding and you really don’t need to apologize anymore.”

“Are you sure?” Derek asked, brows creasing in a tiny, adorable, and totally unfounded frown. “I told JJ he was out of line when he came over last night, that he should have told me about you, and he should apologize to you too.”

And there went the resurgence of Stiles’ Derek Hale-shaped hopes and dreams. That’s where JJ had been when Stiles got back from seeing his dad at the station. Having stupidly amazing sex with stupidly sexy _looks like a bad boy but really has a heart of gold_ Derek Hale. Derek Hale who didn’t actually want to have dinner with Stiles, who just wanted to make nice with his maybe-boyfriend’s twin.

Fuck. His. Life. And himself for getting his own hopes up, for thinking that he’d ever come even close to comparing to JJ.

Stiles nodded and used nineteen years of practice from being in JJ’s shadow to do as the great T. Swift instructed and shake it off. “Er, thanks. And on that note, I’m going to take this lunch inside.”

“I’ll see you around, Stiles,” Derek called as Stiles fled towards the hospital doors and hoped that he didn’t. He wasn’t sure his heart could take it.  

//

Stiles found Mrs. McCall in the ER.

“Will you adopt me?” he moaned, collapsing across the counter of the nurses’ station she was standing behind.

Mrs. McCall laughed, not even bothering to look up from the chart she was writing in. “I don’t think your dad would approve of that.”

“Fine,” Stiles groaned, nose pressed into the cool Formica. “Can I just come and live with you? I’ll do all the cooking and cleaning and laundry on the condition that you never make me leave the house.” He waved the brown sack with the leftovers in her vague direction as Nancy, one of the other nurses, snorted, which showed what she knew. Stiles already did more of the McCall house laundry than Scott. “Look, I even brought you lunch.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. McCall said, taking the sack. “But what about school?”

“Screw school. I’ll marry Scott and be his house-husband.”

“And have you run this past Scott?”

Stiles looked up, she was giving him her patented _Stiles, you are ridiculous_ look, which was totally unfounded. He beamed back. “Scott loves me, he’ll agree.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Mrs. McCall hummed, because what could she say? They both knew Stiles was right; if he announced to Scott he was going to become a hermit and Scott needed to provide for Stiles while he cared for him and their houseful of adopted animal-baby substitutes, Scott totally would. He was awesome like that.

“You should be proud, your son is going to be a great provider for your hairy cat and dog grandbabies.”

Unsurprisingly, she ignored that assertion.

“You survived nineteen years with JJ, you can survive another month and a half.”

“It’s not JJ. Okay, well it is because he’s an ass, but it’s just -,” and the hitch in his voice, in his breath, was enough for Mrs. McCall to flip the switch from fun best-friend’s mom to the woman who’d done at least 75% of his parenting since mom died, dropping her file and giving him her full attention. “It was nice to have a year off of everyone being disappointed that I’m not JJ.”

“Hey,” she said softly, stepping around from behind the station to take him by the shoulders. “Not everyone, okay?” Then, because she knew him almost as well as Scott did she clipped him gently around the ear. “Even when you put _kale_ in my mac and cheese.”

“Kale is good for you!” he protested, trying to suppress a grin. He hugged her, to hide it and because she’d never let him down yet. “Thanks, Mrs. McCall.”

She let him have a minute, and then pried him away to give him her serious mom face. “But seriously, Stiles. Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he lied. “I just needed to vent my teenage melodrama. It’s cool.”

Mrs. McCall raised her eyebrows.

She had a point. Lying wasn’t his strong point.

//

His Dad was halfway out the door, in uniform, when Stiles got home from the hospital. He’d still not been home from the station when Stiles had passed out just after two AM and the cruiser had been suspiciously absent from the drive when Stiles got up to go see Mrs. McCall. It didn’t take a genius to work out the sheriff had pulled an all-nighter.

“Going back in already?”

“Yeah,” his dad said, crossing the drive to the Jeep. “Some hikers in the preserve stumbled across some animal remains that might have been mauled. Gotta go check it out.”

“Think that girl really was attacked by a wild animal?”

“That’s not for you to worry about.”

That meant he suspected otherwise but couldn’t prove it, and worse – he wasn’t going to tell Stiles about it. Not that it would stop Stiles for long, animal remains meant his dad would be taking them, or pictures, to Dr. Deaton and Stiles would just text Scott to eavesdrop and report back.

His dad nodded at the Jeep. “Where’ve you been?”

“Dropping off lunch for Mrs. McCall; we had leftovers.”

“You’re a good kid, Stiles,” his dad smiled, rubbing his hand over Stiles’ hair like he did when Stiles was still in short pants. “I’ll call if I’m going to be home for dinner, but it’s probably going to be another late one.”

“I can run something over. ”

“You don’t need to put yourself out, son.”

“It’s cool, dad. It’s not like me and JJ aren’t going to eat.” He hadn’t thought about what he was going to make for dinner, but he could easily cook up a batch of chili. There’d be enough to feed whoever else was pulling extra long shifts with the Sheriff and actually taste okay as leftovers, even after being reheated in the station’s crappy break-room microwave.

“Hey,” his dad said, face sobering. “I’m sorry. I know this week was supposed to be time for us all to do stuff before you boys start college.”

“Dad, it’s fine,” Stiles assured him.

Sure, it sucked that a girl was dead and that his dad was working stupidly long hours, but Stiles wasn’t going to be losing any sleep over not getting to ‘do stuff’ with his dad and JJ. On the Venn diagram of his, his dad’s and JJ’s interests, the intersection was practically non-existent, being that it only contained watching the Die Hard movies (except 4, only JJ liked 4, the freak).

“No,” his dad sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “No it’s not.”

Of course, his dad didn’t see it like that and Stiles didn’t exactly enjoy upsetting his dad. “There’s like, six weeks before JJ leaves and I’m staying here for a whole other year,” he said, trying to placate him. “So it’s cool, we still have time for Stilinski man-bonding.”

“If you say so,” his dad said, but he was smiling so Stiles counted it as a win. “Oh, and your brother’s still asleep. If he’s not up by noon, use the air-horn.”

//

His dad called just before seven to say that he wasn’t going to make it home.

Scott had reported via text in the middle of the afternoon that the sheriff had been in to see Deaton, who, from the pictures estimated that the animals died Friday night, the same night as the girl. Scott was staying late to help Deaton with animal autopsies to confirm time and cause of death and had promised to swing by after he finished to trade food for information.

As none of this came as a surprise to Stiles, he’d had the chili slow cooking on the stove since two. After he’d told JJ and they’d eaten in blissful silence, Stiles put some food away for Scott in the vegetable drawer where no one else would ever look, and ran the rest over to the station.

“Just me!” Stiles called, letting himself back into the house fifteen minutes later. His dad had been too busy to talk, so Stiles had handed the pot over to Deputy Parrish, who looked like he was about to cry with gratitude, and came home.

There was no reply, which was weird as JJ’s car was still parked out front. “JJ?”

Still no reply. “Huh,” Stiles said to himself, shrugging.

He’d tried. It wasn’t his fault if JJ passed out in a food coma and screamed like a scared toddler when he lurched into Stiles’ room to steal something and actually found him in there.

Stiles grabbed a bottle of Dr Pepper, safely hidden with the chili in the vegetable drawer, before heading up to his room. He figured he’d get in a little quality time with Minecraft before Scott came over.

Stiles had just switched on the X-Box when he heard it.

The telltale squeaking of JJ’s box spring.

“Please be jerking off, please be jerking off,” Stiles whispered, cranking the volume up on his TV.

It didn’t do any good.

Moaning rattled through the wall. Deep, and rumbling, overlaid with JJ’s grunting.

“Please,” Stiles said, pressing the palms of his hands into his eyes. _Please be anyone but Derek._ Anyone else he could cope with like he always did, headphones and loud music, but not if it was Derek.

 _“Oh yeah,”_ JJ’s voice came through the wall. _“That’s it, right there.”_

“No. No, no, no. No.” Stiles couldn’t risk it. He flicked the TV off and grabbed his jacket.

It was too late.

_“Fuck, JJ. Feels so good.”_

And that was Derek.

Having sex with his brother.

Stiles bolted down the stairs, almost tripping over his feet in his haste to get out the door. Only years of talks and nagging and glares from his dad about home invasions made him stop to lock the door behind him before he climbed into the Jeep.

Slamming the door shut he pulled out his phone and texted Scott. _Change of plan, on my way to your place. Be prepared to share grossest details. Need to block out JJ/Derek sex noises :(_

//

“Dude,” Scott said, before flopping down on top of Stiles where he was star-fished face down on Scott’s bed trying to forget the sound of Derek Hale experiencing carnal pleasure.

It was the sort of thing Stiles had spent the last six months imagining, desperately wishing to hear for himself. Only, not through a wall and with his twin.

Forget the spank bank, Stiles would be lucky to ever get a rise out of his dick again.

“You okay?” Scott murmured into Stiles’ neck, arms worming under Stiles’ chest to wrap around him like a really heavy baby monkey.

Stiles burrowed into it. It was kinda nice, even if Scott was slowly crushing him to death, and comforting.

When he didn’t answer, Scott poked him in the belly. Stiles gurgled, then admitted quietly, “No.”

“Want to sleep up here tonight and be the little spoon?”

Stiles had spent so many nights over at the McCalls after mom died, refusing to be parted from Scott and sleep in the guest room, that Mrs. McCall had eventually caved and got Scott a new bed, one that came with a roll-out cot underneath. The Stiles shaped imprint in the mattress had grown with each of his growth spurts and fit him perfectly, though when crap was really getting him down, Scott always let him sleep with him like they had when they were kids, when sharing stolen cookies and reading by flashlight under the sheets had made everything okay. If Scott found it weird, Stiles’ continued need for physical comfort, he’d never said anything about it, though he probably already knew why. Didn’t need Stiles pointing out that his magical twin bond hadn’t died at age seven when JJ turned into a jackass in training, that it had just shifted to Scott instead.

“Yeah.”

“Want me to tell you what Dr. Deaton said about the dead animals?”

“Sure, just give me a minute.”

And Scott did.

//

The next morning Stiles moaned his way out of bed with Scott’s alarm and while Scott was in the shower, went down to the kitchen to make breakfast for him and Mrs. McCall before they both went to work. When they were both gone Stiles cleaned up mess in the kitchen, showered, put on a load of laundry and dressed in the set of running gear that he kept at the McCall house, along with a weeks worth of spare clothes.

Years of parenting Stiles and JJ had given their dad a sixth sense when it came to them breaking the rules, so Stiles didn’t tempt fate by putting his iPod in. He did a quick warm up, switched on his running app, and turned right at the end of the McCall’s street to take him along the edge of – but not into – the preserve. If he couldn’t have music, he could at least have something nicer to look at than Mr. Geraldo’s petunias and the widow Sterling’s new curtains.

An hour later he was heading back towards the residential area at the end of the preserve, sweaty, sore and maybe feeling like he could see JJ without trying to murder him. Which was of course why Derek Hale appeared from between the trees, running with perfect form in basketball shorts and a wife-beater.

“Hey, Stiles,” Derek said, falling into pace next to Stiles, barely out of breath and not a drop of sweat in sight.

The universe hated him. Stiles took a slug of his water and nodded in greeting back, hoping Derek might take the subtle hint that Stiles did not want company.

At least, he didn’t want Derek’s company. Not when Stiles was finally starting to repress the never-ending soundtrack of him and JJ fucking.

Derek didn’t take the hint. “I didn’t know you ran.”

Stiles awarded himself a mental gold star for not pointing out that Derek knew fuck all about him, seeing as how he’d starting screwing JJ before Stiles could ask him out for the getting to you know part of their relationship.

“Most mornings,” he explained instead, though he’d been slacking lately with JJ being home and the crushing of his dreams of happily ever after with Derek. “Before it gets too hot, but evenings too, sometimes.”

“Not lacrosse?”

Stiles took another drink to stall for time, even though he’d regret running out of water before he got back to the McCall house to pick up the Jeep. There was no way he could increase his pace enough to leave Derek behind, he’d already pushed himself too hard after almost a week off, and Derek looked ready to go for hours.

Which left him with two options – be rude and ignore Derek, or suck it up and engage.

It wasn’t a fun choice, but an easy one. His stupid heart hadn’t gotten the memo to give up yet and still liked Derek, a lot.

“Sports aren’t my thing. Running without tripping, most of the time anyway, is about all my sub-par coordination skills can handle.”

Derek looked him up and down. “You have good form.”

Stiles almost tripped. Derek caught him by the elbow. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Stiles said, waving him off and settling back into a comfortable pace. “Still think I’ve got good form?”

Derek laughed. “Sure. Bet you kept the track team on their toes.”

“Wasn’t on the track team.”

“Cross-country?”

Stiles shook his head. “Nah, school sports are JJ’s thing. I run because I need to, not because I actively enjoy it or anything.”

Derek threw Stiles a look like he was insane, which was probably fair.

“I was diagnosed with ADHD in first grade. I’ve got meds that help with the attention issues, most of the time, but I still have a lot of energy to burn. Any sort of organised or team sport is a struggle and not really worth the effort.” Especially when he was expected to live up to JJ’s stupidly high overachieving playing standards. “And so began my long and slightly hateful relationship with running.”

Derek nodded along through Stiles’ panted explanation and didn’t seem shocked by Stiles’ ADHD admission. He wondered if JJ had been moaning about his spazzy brother again, or if it was just that obvious.

“I played basketball in high school, back when that was still a sport BHHS cared about,” Derek said. “I used to run after school in the preserve, out to the lake on our property and back. The track coach always wanted me to join the team, when I finally gave in I only lasted a week. The track was boring as hell.”

Stiles chuckled, as much as he could without depriving himself of too much oxygen. “You’re telling me.”

“You always run along the road?” Derek asked, looking at Stiles way too thoughtfully for a guy in the middle of a run.

“Nah, just today. Why?”

“I noticed someone’s running the tracks around the edge of my family’s land. I thought I recognized the-,” Derek paused, and then waved in Stiles’ direction, finishing a little lamely. “Your clothes.”

And so that was a little weird, but Stiles guessed his neon gear was pretty bright, that was the point of it after all, to be visible through the trees.

“Oh yeah, my morning run is normally through the preserve. I didn’t realise the paths ran so close to your house. I can change my route when I’m allowed to run in there again?”

Derek quirked a brow. “Allowed?”

“Dad’s banned me until further notice. I don’t know if you heard, but a girl was attacked.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Derek said, his face turning more serious than Stiles had ever seen it, which given his resting face, was pretty damn serious. “The news is saying it was a wild animal.”

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed noncommittally, because his dad still wasn’t convinced and his dad’s gut wasn’t usually wrong.

Derek stopped, turning to watch Stiles carefully. “You think it was something else?”

Stiles took the opportunity to bend over and catch his breath, tilting his head up to look at Derek. “Do you?”

Derek looked away, towards the preserve. The sun behind him made it impossible for Stiles to read his expression, but the tone of his voice was obvious. “I think whatever it is, you should be careful.”

“I will,” Stiles assured him, hoping that Derek would stop being creepy soon. Stiles tried to write if off as Derek knowing what was in the preserve, seeing as how he’d lived in it until he was fifteen and spent the last six months supervising renovation in there. “My future does not include any plans to be fatally mauled by anything.”

“And yet you’re running out here, alone,” Derek pointed out, starting them off again at a slightly gentler pace.

“On the main road, without my beloved headphones and my cell phone turned on, all per Sheriff Dad’s instructions. What about you? You’re out here on your own.”

“I can take care of myself.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Of course you can, big guy.”

Derek smirked, but didn’t say anything else until they reached the end of the road, where it split off in one direction along the rest of the preserve boundary road and the way Stiles was heading, back to the McCall’s. Stiles pointed. “That’s me.”

Derek nodded in the other direction, which given the estimation of his own survival skills, did not come as much of a shock to Stiles.

“Cool,” he said, and then because his dad did at least try and raise him to be polite, “thanks for the company.”

Derek caught Stiles’ elbow before he could leave. “You should come running with me. Safety in numbers.”

Which was a really sweet offer, that his dad must never know about, but a super bad idea. His heart might have been fluttering like he was a Disney Princess, but he wasn’t actually a moron. More time with Derek was not going to make his crush go away. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” Derek asked, crossing his arms over his chest and doing obscene things to his biceps, lips curling up in a smirk. “I promise I won’t leave you behind.”

“It’s funny that you just assume you can run faster than me based on watching me run for a whole ten minutes at a completely unknown point in my route, but that’s not my point. You’re dating JJ, I think it’d be weird.”

Derek frowned. “I’m not dating JJ.”

“Really?” Stiles snorted, feeling his eyebrows go so high they might have been about to crawl off his face. “Because the noises I had to listen to coming through my bedroom wall last night suggest otherwise.”

“JJ said you weren’t going to be home,” Derek choked, his face turning bright red for the first time since he appeared out of the trees.  

“I went out to drop dinner off to our dad, which takes twenty minutes tops, but JJ would lie to the Pope if he thought it would get him laid.”

“You weren’t there this morning.” Derek’s nostrils did a weird little flare. “Did you go to your girlfriend’s? Boyfriend’s?”

“Nooo,” Stiles laughed. “I went and crashed at a friend’s house.”

Derek did not look like he believed Stiles, though he couldn’t imagine why. It wasn’t like Derek saw any sort of sex appeal in Stiles, so why should be surprised that no one else did?

“A strictly platonic and very heterosexual, despite the spooning, friend.”

Derek’s eyebrows did a hilarious, and confused wiggle. “Spooning?”

“Not important,” Stiles dismissed, because trying to explain him and Scott would take at least a week and Stiles had to get running again before he cooled down. “What is important is this: never believe JJ when he says that no one is home. And I’m not just saying that because there are some things I never need to hear ever again.”

JJ might have been nineteen and sexually active since fifteen (not that their dad knew), but that didn’t change that their dad, the _sheriff_ , was super protective of his boys and had constant access to registered firearms and the knowledge of how to get away with murder. Literally.

“I’m sorry you had to hear,” Derek said, cheeks getting impossibly redder. “If I’d known you were going to be home I would’ve-.”

“And I’m going to cut you off right there. It is not the first time I’ve heard my sibling’s sex noises and it’s probably not the last, so how about we try not giving me _more_ details and let me get on with repressing this fresh mental trauma.”

Derek did an excellent goldfish impression. “So. How about a run tomorrow?”

Stiles scratched the back of his head and looked at the sky. He was tempted, so very tempted, but just the idea of being friends with Derek and nothing more because JJ got there first felt like a knife in Stiles’ gut. “I think I’m going to have to pass. Even if it wasn’t going to be weird, which it will be, I can guarantee JJ wouldn’t like it.”

Derek’s cute little monobrow of confusion returned with a vengeance. Stiles had to look away before he folded like a cheap suit. “Why not?”

“You’d have to ask him that,” Stiles replied, because turning down time with Derek wasn’t exactly his idea of fun and he never promised anyone not to be a bitter, spiteful bastard over the whole thing. So let JJ explain that even though he was only using Derek for his, apparently, magnificent dick, he didn’t share. See if Derek still thought JJ was an okay guy then.

“I’ll see you around, Derek,” he lied over his shoulder, running in the opposite direction before Derek could stop him.

//

When Stiles finally made it home after showering, changing, and moving the laundry over to the dryer at the McCall house, JJ was sprawled over the couch channel surfing.

“You are in so much trouble with dad,” JJ crowed, not even looking at Stiles.

Stiles wished he hadn’t bothered getting changed after his run so he could have at least thrown a sweaty sock in JJ’s smug face.

“Why?”

“He didn’t have to go to work today, he wanted to do his dumb man-bonding crap and you went and ruined it by not being here.”

“So he went back to the station?”

“Nah,” JJ said, looking over the back of the couch. “He went to go get us pizza. And by us, I mean not you.”

“Pizza?” Stiles clenched his fists to stop himself from reaching out and throttling JJ. “For fuck’s sake, JJ, he had mac and cheese the other night. Do you want him to have a heart attack?”

“Jesus, it’s one pizza.” JJ rolled his eyes, like Stiles was actually over-reacting, like he hadn’t explained to JJ in detail exactly how much risk their dad was of a heart attack.

“It’s not just ‘one pizza’ and you fucking know it,” Stiles snapped, tired of always being the ‘food-Nazi’, of having to fight his dad _and_ JJ just to stop their only remaining parent dropping dead before he hit fifty.

“Yeah, and you could have talked him out of it if you were actually here,” JJ accused, turning on the couch to throw a disgusted look at Stiles. “What the hell crawled up your ass and died?”

And _that_ was it. Stiles took a step back, putting JJ out of his physical reach and spat out, “How about the fact that when I got home from taking dad dinner last night it was to the sounds of you fucking the guy I like?”

“Whoops,” JJ grinned.

Stiles took a deep, shaking breath and clenched his hands harder. “Whoops? Fucking _whoops_ , that’s all you have to say?”

JJ rolled his eyes again and grinned at Stiles like a fucking toddler caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “What do you want me to say? Derek booty called me and we couldn’t do it at his place.”

“‘Sorry I didn’t text you and tell you not to come home, Stiles’ or ‘sorry you had to listen to me boning, _again_ ,’ or how about ‘sorry for making you listen to me having sex with the guy I know you’re really into, that was a super dick move of me.’”

JJ’s face softened. Stiles wasn’t taken in by it.

“You’re really pissed about this?”

“Yeah,” Stiles exhaled sharply. “I really kind of am.”

“Then I’m sorry, okay,” JJ said, his face a perfect mirror of Stiles’ own placatory bullshit apologies and he’d been right not to fall for JJ’s lame attempt at guilt. “I didn’t know it’d be such a big deal. Sure, you’re into him but it’s not like anything was going to happen between you two.”

It struck like a knife between the ribs and Stiles hated that JJ was right. If Derek was taken in by JJ then Stiles never even stood a chance, but that sure as fuck didn’t make what JJ did okay. Didn’t make JJ any less of a selfish, self-obsessed, uncaring asshole.

“You’re-,” Stiles started, voice trembling with rage as every bitter truth he wanted to spew at the back of JJ’s head was cut off by the door opening and their dad’s voice.

“You finally remembered where you live, Stiles?”

“Yeah,” he called back, knuckling the evidence of the anger and hurt from his eyes, swallowing it all down, before their dad came in, two pizza boxes in his hands. “Though if you think you’re getting out of a lecture about your cholesterol because I wasn’t here to stop you ordering, then you are wrong oh father mine. So very wrong.”

“Son.” His dad raised an eyebrow at Stiles. “I’ve not spent more than thirty minutes with you and your brother since he got back. You think you could just shut up and enjoy a pizza you didn’t have to pay for, for once?”

Stiles threw his hands up and stomped into the kitchen. “Whatever.”

“Hey, Stiles,” his dad said, following him, which was the opposite of what Stiles wanted. “You okay.”

“Fine,” Stiles ground out, busying himself with getting plates and glasses out the cabinets and trying to stop his heart beating out of his chest.  

“You sure, because I gotta admit, you’re letting the whole pizza thing go a little easier than I was expecting. Not that I’m complaining.”

“I said I’m _fine_ ,” he snapped, slamming the cabinet shut with a crack and regretting it immediately.

His dad put his hand on Stiles’ shoulder and made a really good attempt at not looking super awkward when Stiles gave in and turned around. “This about that guy you like?”

As far as Stiles knew, this was uncharted territory for him. The only the advice he’d given JJ was less advice and more a strong talking to about what he’d do to him if he got a girl pregnant or picked up an STD. There had never been anyone, in the history of ever, that JJ had wanted that he hadn’t got and Stiles hadn’t been stupid enough to go to his dad after the mess with Heather.

He didn’t particularly want his dad’s sympathy or awkward advice, but he still took the out. “Yeah. He’s seeing someone.”

Technically, it was true, his dad probably wouldn’t pick up on the great big omission in the middle of it and it wasn’t exactly like he could tell him the actual truth. Seeing as not once in their nineteen-year history had his dad ever picked up on the antagonistic at best and shitty at worst relationship between his sons; it still impressed Stiles, in a sick sort of way, how selectively blind his dad could be for such a good cop.

His dad’s face turned horribly, painfully sad. “Son-.”

“If you even think about giving me the _you’re too good for him_ or _he’s stupid if he can’t see how special you are_ speech you will be on a raw, vegan diet until I go to Irvine, I swear to god. It’s not like I’m a stranger to teenage heartbreak and rejection; I am fine. I will be fine, but I _do not_ want to talk about it.”

“Okay.” His dad held his hands up in surrender and Stiles wasn’t sure if it was the raw vegan threat or the slightly hysterical tinge that was creeping into his voice. “Not talking about it.”

Stiles’ shoulders slumped and he wished he could go back to hiding at Scott’s. “Right. Good.”

His dad scrubbed his hand over Stiles’ head, like there was actually enough hair to mess up. “C’mon, I don’t have to go back to the station today. Me, you and your brother can eat pizza, finally spend some time together and not talk about boys, okay?”

It sounded very close to Stiles’ personal hell, but his dad looked so hopeful, so happy at the prospect that he forced a smile. “Sounds great.”

//

It was as awful as Stiles had expected. His dad ate too much pizza, JJ regaled them with more fantastical tales about his adventures in South America, rescuing street urchins in distress and breaking mountain climbing records left, right and center, and they finished the evening watching some awful baseball movie his dad and JJ proclaimed to be a classic. Because Stiles loved his dad, and despite what everyone said, actually knew when to shut the hell up, he didn’t call bullshit on any of JJ’s stories or complain about the movie, or when JJ covered the popcorn with butter and let his dad help himself.

By the time the movie finished it was just before nine and Stiles announced he was going to bed.

His dad quirked a disbelieving brow. “Little early for you, Stiles.”

Stiles shrugged. “Didn’t sleep well last night and I’ve got to be at the hospital for nine.”

His dad nodded, patting Stiles on the arm as he trudged past. “Sleep well, kiddo.”

Stiles mumbled an agreement before dragging himself up the stairs to his room and face-planting on his bed. In the dark and the silence it was impossible to ignore the insidious voice in the back of his mind that sounded just like JJ as it whispered that he never stood a chance with Derek. That just like Lydia, it was a dumb, pointless crush on someone way out of his league; someone who was more interested in guys who were cool and confident like JJ, not a nerdy, hyper, spazzy virgin like Stiles.

Stiles picked up his phone and text Scott. _Tomorrow begins OPERATION: GET OVER DUMB CRUSH ON DEREK HALE._

His phone beeped with a reply from Scott almost instantly. _A wise man once told me when your best friend gets his heart broken you get your best friend drunk. JD in the preserve tomorrow night?_  

Stiles snorted and text back. _:( if mystery murder monster doesn’t kill us, dad will._  

 _Fuck :(_ Scott texted back, eloquent as ever. Then, _Oh wait. Mom says she’s working the night shift. Meet me after work. Bring food._

Stiles laughed and thought maybe he could do this. He had Scott, the best friend and bro in the world, what did he need Derek Hale for?

//

Stiles got back from his morning run to find his dad in the kitchen with a half-eaten bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee, which wasn’t surprising for 8am, even on a day off. That he was wearing his uniform was.

“Work. Again?” Stiles said, putting as much accusation into his tone as he could while gasping for breath and pulled a bottle of water from the fridge to down half of it.

His dad eyed Stiles over the rim of his mug. “You run through the preserve?”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “No, I don’t actually want to get maimed.”

His dad gave a small nod, and sipped his coffee. Stiles mirrored the action with his water and applied his common sense. “Has there been another attack?”

“No.”

Stiles gave him his best disbelieving and accusatory glare, the one he’d learned from his dad himself. “So you just thought you’d go into work on your day off after working a shitload of overtime?”

“Language,” his dad chastised, pointing a finger at Stiles.

Stiles waited and kept up with the glare until his dad deflated.

“Fine. Beacon City PD are delivering some case files this morning.”

Stiles swallowed. “Animals or people?”

“Both. Three young women, two boys and multiple animal mutilations all within six months.”

Stiles rubbed a hand over his face and swallowed the _fuck_ that wanted to escape.

“They might not be the same, which is why we’re going to review the case files,” his dad added, like it would make Stiles feel any better.

His dad wouldn’t have risked the jurisdictional pissing contest if he didn’t think there were enough similarities, and if they were all linked... Well, that took it straight out of mystery possibly-a-mountain-lion animal and into serial killer territory. Animals didn’t move from Beacon City to Beacon Hills. _People_ did.

“It’s probably nothing,” his dad carried on and Stiles didn’t call him on the obvious lie, “but I want you to be careful. No more disappearing and not telling me where you’re going. You have your cell phone with you and on at all times. No messing around after dark, even with Scott.”

Stiles nodded and didn’t even think about complaining. House arrest with JJ wasn’t even close to his idea of fun, but if his dad was this freaked out then it was serious and Stiles wasn’t kidding. He had no plans to get maimed, or worse, die a virgin.  

On the plus side, house arrest would make Operation: Get Over Derek much easier.

“Promise,” Stiles assured him, finishing his water. “I’m gonna shower and then go to the hospital. I’ll swing by the station with lunch, and I’m staying at Scott’s tonight. No going out, I swear. Okay?”

“Good.” His dad nodded, squeezing Stiles’ shoulder as he pushed away from the table. “Stay safe, kiddo.”

“You too,” Stiles said, catching his dad in a hug before he left.

//

His newfound confidence in his ability to actually pull off Operation: Get Over Derek Hale didn’t last long.

The universe obviously hated him, because Derek was waiting for him when got done in the pediatric oncology ward. Leaning against the nurses’ station with a smile so devastatingly attractive, Helen of Troy would have looked like an old hag standing next to him.

Stiles’ heart cranked it up a notch and his palms turned embarrassingly sweaty.

Derek’s smile, impossibly, got wider and more stunning. It was like looking at the sun.

Stiles hated his life, and his dick, which he was trying very hard to stop from getting too excited.

“How long have you been there?”

Derek’s smile faltered, his eyes flicking between the floor and a spot over Stiles’ shoulder. Stiles would have felt bad about his tone coming out so harsh, but the downward turn to the corners of Derek’s mouth was a pretty effective boner killer so it wasn’t a total loss.

“Long enough,” Derek confessed, then finally met Stiles’ eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t spying on you.”

Stiles took a deep breath and tried not to feel like a total jerk for making Derek look so _sorry_. “It’s okay,” he said, though it really wasn’t. “I just wasn’t expecting an audience over the age of eleven.”

“You’re really good,” Derek offered shyly and Jesus, Stiles was a jerk. “I mean, the kids really seemed to like it. With the voices.”

“Thanks,” Stiles said, shifting his bag onto his shoulder. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“It shows.”

Stiles glared at the floor, hating the heat that flared up in his cheeks at the compliment. Stiles had been reading stories to various pediatric wards with the assistance of hand puppets, silly voices and the occasional costume, wigs included, since his freshman year of high school. _Of course_ it showed.

Derek stating the obvious didn’t mean anything other than the obvious. Stiles worked fucking hard to give the kids half an hour where they could maybe forget how much being sick and in the hospital sucked. Continuing the conversation was obviously not the way to make his crippling crush on Derek go away.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Stiles asked, because he’d never been known for his self-preservation skills.

“The same as you,” Derek said. “Though, I don’t think ninety-eighty year old Mrs. Manville would appreciate me doing voices to Little Women.”

Stiles laughed, unable to stop the mental image of Derek attempting to voice Louisa May Alcott’s famous daughters. “I thought you volunteered in the afternoons?”

Derek blinked and it only took a second for Stiles to realise just how much of his crush he’d let show and the crippling shame to kick in.

“Wow, sorry,” Stiles said, wishing the floor would open up and swallow him whole. “That sounded super-stalkery of me. I’m not, I swear.” He met Derek’s eye and tried to look unassuming and prayed that this wouldn’t get back to JJ, because he’d get shit for it until the end of time if it did.

“Mrs. McCall, my friend’s mom that works here, she mentioned that you started volunteering here too.”

Derek quirked an eyebrow and Stiles rushed to explain that he wasn’t actually using hospital staff to do his Derek stalking for him. “I used to do the kids on weekends and the old folks on weekdays, because not many people want to spend time with old people they don’t know and they need the company more. When you started, I could switch out a couple of weekdays, without feeling like I was abandoning them because the kids like my... enthusiasm better.”

“You’re really devoted.”

“Er, yeah,” Stiles said, surprised that Derek made it sound like it was a good thing. That he thought it was a good thing.

JJ hated hospitals, had started loathing them with a passion when mom was sick enough to be admitted regularly and refused to go see her unless their dad bribed or guilt-tripped him. Stiles had been the opposite, their dad having to drag Stiles’ out of mom’s room to go to school until she was admitted for the last time, permanently. He might have been young, but he was a kid with an attention disorder and he saw more than most. He saw all the people who sat alone all day with no visitors, lonely and bored, sometimes too sick to even pick up a book. After mom died JJ would stay at school and study or play sports until their dad finished work. Stiles would go to the hospital until Mrs. McCall finished her shift and would bring him home, filling the time sitting and talking with the old patients with no family or reading to them, or playing with the kids in the pediatric ward whose parents were stuck at work.

“My mom was in hospital a lot when I was a kid,” Stiles explained, and let Derek fill in the rest.

“My Uncle Peter, he was the only person seriously injured in the fire,” Derek offered in return.

Stiles remembered it. According to his dad, Peter had refused to leave the burning house because his daughter Malia had locked herself in her closet. Peter had been trying to get her out when he got hit by a burning bit of timber. The firefighters had gotten them both out and Malia had been unharmed other than smoke inhalation, but Peter had suffered serious burns.

“He was in the specialist burns unit in Beacon City for a couple of months and we all used to take turns visiting him so that he was never alone for very long. I joined a volunteer program to visit people and keep them company in my senior year of high school to look good on my EMT applications, and I realized how lucky Peter was to have us there all the time, so I kept it up. When I have the time.”  

“You’re an EMT?” Stiles blurted out, mouth keeping up its track record of working before his brain, because that was not the important thing to take from Derek’s heartfelt confession. “Er, sorry.”

Derek chuckled softly, offering Stiles a smaller, gentler smile that was no less devastating. His heart skipped a beat.

Derek’s smile got a little wider. “Firefighter, actually. I got certified last year, been working with a fire department in Beacon City since then. That’s why I volunteered in the afternoons; on my off days I’d drive down in the morning, check in on the construction at the house, get some stuff done and then come to the hospital before driving back.”

That answered a lot of the questions about Derek’s comings and goings that had been bugging Stiles since Derek first rolled back into town, but he had just enough sense to keep his mouth shut. He nodded encouragingly, rather than risk saying something that made him sound like the hopelessly crushing teenager he was, or worse, a creep.

“Now the house is done, I’m just waiting to start at my new department here in town, and so I thought I’d put in some mornings as well.”

And _holy fuck_ if that hadn’t been enough to make Stiles melt into a puddle of horny, heart-eyed goo on the floor then the cute, almost shy way Derek admitted to doubling his community service would have done it. A sexy, heart-of-gold, firefighter with a tragic back-story, Derek was practically a Lifetime movie and Operation: Get Over Derek Hale was an epic failure.

Stiles was pretty sure he was even more in love with Derek than he had been to begin with. It was hell.

“That’s awesome,” Stiles said, trying not to whimper, or throw himself at Derek’s feet. He nodded at his watch. “Really, but I’ve got another ward to get to.”

Stiles thought Derek said it was nice to see him, but he was too busy fleeing to hear.

//

“Operation: Get Over Derek Hale is a fail,” Stiles slurred that night, passing the half empty bottle of Jack Daniels back to Scott.

Scott reached over and patted Stiles in the face. Stiles was drunk enough not to care.

“He’s just too perfect,” Stile complained, rolling onto his side and regretting it as the world lurched violently, and so did his stomach. “I thought it was bad when he was just this super hot guy I saw around town helping old people with their groceries and driving his sexy car and reading books in coffee shops. But now I know. I _know_.”

“Know?” Scott frowned, waving the bottle under Stiles’ nose.

Stiles took it, nodded, and spilt more JD down his shirt than he got in his mouth. Oops. “He’s a firefighter, Scott. A _firefighter_. It’s like he’s giving the universe the biggest fuck you ever. His house burns down and his entire family escapes horrible, painful death and he becomes a firefighter. To save other people’s families. _And_ he doesn’t think I’m weird for reading to old people at the hospital, or doing silly voices for the kids.”

“That is pretty perfect.” Scott wrinkled his nose. “I think your gay is catching. Even I’m starting to think he’s a catch.”

Stiles moaned mournfully. “He _is_ a catch. And JJ caught him.”

“JJ is a dick,” Scott pronounced sagely.

“Word.”

Stiles poured more JD in the vicinity of his face, and handed the bottle back to Scott.

“How am I supposed to get over him when he keeps showing up being perfect at me?”

Scott reached out and managed to pat Stiles’ ear this time. “You don’t need to get over him. He needs to get over JJ.”

Stiles snorted. “He already got over JJ, and under.”

Scott made barfing noises. “Gross.”

“You have no idea.” Stiles rolled on to his back and watched the ceiling spin.

“But ‘m serious, Stiles. Maybe you shouldn’t give up on Derek. You’re way better than JJ and if Derek really is made of kittens and marshmallows then he’s totally going to get sick of your jerk of a brother.”

Stiles laughed until the world went blurry and he thought he was going to actually barf. “Dude,” he gasped. “Like JJ would let me.”

//

“The pair of you are idiots,” Mrs. McCall declared, pulling the drapes of Scott’s room open.

Stiles was convinced he was having a stroke. “Unnngh.”

She put two large bottles of water on the floor next to them, and two aspirin each. “Take these and drink this.”

Scott made a gurgling noise.

Stiles rolled on to his front, buried his face in the carpet and focused on not throwing up.

“If either of you puke, you’re cleaning it up,” she warned before pulling the door shut behind her.

“Kill me now,” Stiles begged an already snoring Scott, and let unconsciousness pull him back under.

//

“Rough night?” Allison giggled, dropping into the opposite side of the booth where Stiles was currently pressing his face into the cool Formica and waiting for his hopefully hangover-curing cheeseburger and fries.

All Stiles could manage was a string of pained consonants.

Allison’s face lit up with the power of her amusement at Stiles’ pain. Allison liked to pretend she was sweet and made of sunshine, but secretly she was _evil_.

Stiles smushed his nose into the table and moaned until Jeannie, the diner’s oldest and crankiest waitress, slammed his plate down next to his face.

Allison ordered a Rueben and a strawberry milkshake, then waited for Stiles to inhale half of his food and actually start to feel like he maybe, might not be about to drop dead.

“So,” she grinned. “Is Scott just as much of a mess as you are, because Archie has a check up this afternoon and I don’t want him breathing on my dog and getting him drunk.”

Stiles, because he occasionally was in possession of actual manners, finished chewing his handful of fries before replying. “Nah, Doc Deaton’s punishing Scott for turning up late and hungover by making him spend the day cleaning out the cages. Archie is safe.”

Allison nodded sagely and thanked Jeannie as her milkshake was delivered. “You want to share?” She offered, pushing it to the middle of the table.

Stiles shook his head, stomach churning violently.

Allison’s eyes went impossibly wide as she pulled the milkshake back to her. “Wow, you actually turned a little green. Are you going to puke?”

Stiles swallowed. Hard. “Please don’t say puke again.”

Allison looked apologetic. Stiles stared down at his half-eaten burger and fries and tried to decide if finishing them would make things better or worse.

He decided not to risk it. Yet.

“I saw that JJ’s back in town,” Allison said gently as Stiles pushed his plate away.

She was all understanding eyes and sympathy and maybe she wasn’t so evil after all. If there was anyone other than Stiles and the McCalls who knew just how much of a douche-bag JJ was, it was Allison. She’d been Scott’s puppy-love first girlfriend for the last two years of junior high and freshman year of high school and JJ had spent the whole three years trying to get her to dump Scott and go out with him instead, even when he was dating other people, her best friend - Lydia - included.

Stiles shrugged and she reached across the table and patted his hand, offering with a small smile, “In six weeks time he’ll be moving out of state for four years?”

Stiles laughed, and then regretted it as his brain throbbed behind his eyeballs. “Put me out of my misery,” he groaned, rubbing his hands over his face. “Say you were trying to shoot an apple off my head and it went horribly wrong.”

“Pffft,” Allison huffed, “as if I’d miss.”

“True,” Stiles said, slumping forward on the table and picking at his fries as Allison’s food was delivered.

She was a nationally ranked archer, it had been one of the reasons why she and Scott had broken up – when she wasn’t travelling around the country for competitions, her dad had her on a super intense training schedule that hadn’t included making out with her boyfriend. There’d been rumours she’d been offered a place on the Olympic team sophomore year of high school, but her mom had just been diagnosed with cancer and two months later she’d stopped competing.

She and Scott had gotten back together for a disastrous three months after her mom’s funeral before it all imploded in a super messy break-up. It’d taken them until senior year and Scott crushing on Kira, the new girl, for them to start being friends again. Stiles had always liked Allison – anyone who picked Scott over JJ instantly went on his favorites forever list – and he’d been glad they could be friends again without the awkwardness of _bros before hos_ between them.

“How was your trip?” He asked, remembering that they were supposed to go to the shooting range the day before but Allison’s dad had taken her out of town at the last minute for a business meeting. With high school over Allison was going into the family gun selling business rather than college, and her dad treated the whole thing as seriously as he’d treated her archery. Like everything was a matter of life and death.

Allison rolled her eyes. “Full of old men who don’t take me seriously because I’m just a ‘little girl’. Like I haven’t been training for this for pretty much ever.”

“Fuck ‘em,” Stiles declared, then pulled a face. “Though not literally, because that would be gross.”

Allison laughed, hair falling in her face and eyes sparkling. “Seeing as one of them was my grandpa Gerard, yeah, that’d be really gross.”

“Oh,” Stiles moaned, “I really am going to puke now.”

He’d met Allison’s grandfather once, and he was one creepy, nasty old fucker.

She offered Stiles a butter wouldn’t melt smile and he revised his opinion again. She was evil. _Really_ evil.

“I was going to see if you wanted to come to the range with me today and save me from my Aunt Kate, but I’m not sure you could hit a target if it was three feet in front of you.”

Stiles pulled another face. “Your Aunt Kate is in town?”

Allison nodded and made a pretty impressive attempt at looking cheerful about it. Stiles recognized it for the bullshit it was; he’d pulled it a lot himself around his dad with JJ’s return from South America.

Stiles had only ever had the pleasure of meeting Allison’s Aunt Kate twice before and she clearly took lessons on how to be a creepy fucker, with obvious bad touch overtones, from Gerard Argent.

“Yeah. She turned up last week. She’s been staying with Gerard in Beacon City for the last six months and she followed us back down from the trip. Apparently she wants us to spend more ‘girl time’ together. Which really just means her trying to get me to go hunting with her,” Allison said with disgust.

Way back in junior high Allison had idolized her Aunt when she’d spent a year as a substitute teacher at Beacon Hills high school and living with the Argents. She’d been like the cool older sister that only-child Allison never had, buying her cute clothes, teaching her about makeup and letting her gossip about boys – about _Scott_. After Allison’s mom died, Allison spent a couple of months drinking, smoking, getting picked up by Deputies a couple of nights a week, and just being angry at the world, Kate was out of favor.

Stiles hadn’t judged Allison on her behavior – if there was anyone that got it, it was him – and he’d never been so insensitive as to ask what Kate had done, or said, to earn Allison’s lifelong disdain.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t curious, though.

“I’m free tomorrow afternoon,” he offered. “But only if Kate doesn’t come. I love you Allison, but not enough to put up with Kate’s, frankly, creepily pornographic fondling of loaded weapons. She’s not _my_ aunt.”

Allison pouted. “But Stiles,” she started to plead, but was cut off by a shadow falling over the table.

“Hi, Stiles,” the shadow said and Stiles turned his head, even though his heart was already pounding because he knew that voice.

Oh, he knew that voice.

“Hi Allison,” Derek continued.

“Hi Derek,” Allison offered in return, friendly enough but not her usual level of sunshine and rainbows greeting.

Stiles offered a wave of his hand, then buried his face in his arm and hoped that Derek would go away. He barely had any control over himself at the best of times, least of all when he was very hungover and possibly still a little bit drunk.

“You’ll have to excuse Stiles,” Allison said politely. “He’s killed all his manners with alcohol.”

There was a long pause before Derek spoke again. “I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

“We went to school together,” Allison explained. “I used to date Stiles’ best friend.”

There was another pause that even Stiles, who was relying on audio cues only, could tell was super awkward. “Do we need to talk about -?”

“No,” Allison cut him off, her voice sharp and hard like Stiles hadn’t heard since after her mom died. He risked a glance up and _wow_ , there was definitely something going on that Stiles was missing, if the cold calm on Allison’s face and the defensive cross of Derek’s arms across his body was anything to go by.

Allison caught Stiles looking and forced a smile. “Everything’s fine,” she said, eyes back on Derek and voice too calm and overly cheerful. “But you can come by the house later, if you want to talk about it.”

“Sure.” Derek nodded, but in no way appeared happy by the prospect. He looked at Stiles and offered a small, strained smile. “See you around, Stiles.”

Stiles mumbled out a reply and watched him go before sitting up and glaring at Allison. “Are you going to tell me what that seriously awkward super weirdness was about?”

Allison bit her bottom lip thoughtfully. “You know Derek?”

So that was a _no_ then.

“He’s JJ’s latest conquest.”

And that actually flustered Allison. “JJ? I didn’t realise Derek-.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said, firmly. “He does, with JJ at least. I didn’t know you knew him.”

“Yes,” she said, looking out the window to where Derek was getting in his Camaro, take out bag in hand. “Well, sort of.”

Maybe that explained her lack of knowledge on Derek’s dude loving, which was a hell of a better prospect than JJ actually making someone turn gay for him.

“Our families go way back,” Allison explained and it didn’t take a genius to work out she didn’t mean in a good way. “It’s complicated and things are pretty tense.”

“So why’d you invite him to your house?”

“Like I said, it’s complicated.”

//

Stiles, being, if not smart enough to not get drunk as hell, wasn’t so dumb as to actually clue his dad in to what he’d been doing at Scott’s, and left his dad’s lunch with Tara at the front desk.

“Can’t stop,” he told her, handing over the take out baked potato and salad, no cheese. “Can you make sure dad gets this.”

“Sure,” Tara agreed, giving Stiles a once over with a suspicious eye. “You’re not looking so great, everything okay, Stiles?”

Once, when JJ had been caught out after curfew and had successfully passed himself off as being Stiles to Deputy Barnes, who was so dumb Stiles didn’t know how he’d passed the Academy entrance exam let alone graduated, he’d said he didn’t get why Stiles was so pissed off about being grounded. Stiles could totally do what JJ did all the time, steal his brother’s clothes and wear a hat.

Stiles wished JJ hadn’t been full of shit, because Tara was totally on to him and it would have been some seriously well-deserved payback if she ratted out JJ instead, but that wasn’t going to happen. Even if Stiles could have pulled off being as quiet and still as JJ could be – which with his ADHD was impossible – JJ had never, once, in his entire life, brought their dad lunch at the station.

“Made the mistake of letting Scott control the hot sauce last night,” he lied, stating a strategic retreat. “Tell dad to let me know if he’s going to be home for dinner.”

//

JJ wasn’t home that night.

Every time Stiles went downstairs, his dad was sitting on the couch, nursing the same warm beer and watching, but not paying any attention to the TV. If he were, Law & Order wouldn’t have been on.

Stiles was very pointedly not thinking about the house in the preserve where JJ was probably… doing things with Derek that Stiles was not going to think about. Still, he texted JJ again.

_Stop being a dick and freaking dad out. Text him and let him know you’re okay or I’m telling him where you are._

Surprising no one, Stiles didn’t get a reply. He did hear his dad’s phone buzz ten minutes later and when he went downstairs to say goodnight, his dad had a fresh beer and was laughing along to Leslie Nielsen demanding not to be called Shirley.

//

The next morning Stiles woke up feeling at least a million times better than he had the day before so he put on his running gear and declared a fresh start on Operation: GTFO Derek. Derek had seen – _fucked_ – JJ at least three times in less than a week and that meant, no matter how much Stiles wished, moped, or hoped, he didn’t have a chance.

Derek Hale was into guys like JJ and Stiles just had to suck it up, move on, and remember that in a year he’d be going to Irvine. A mystical place where no one would ever know he had a cooler, better-looking twin unless he told them, which he obviously was never going to do.

When Stiles got back his dad was in uniform, washing out a coffee cup at the sink with shoulders so tense they were almost at his ears.

Stiles heart lurched in his chest.

“Another attack?” Stiles forced out, panic sending his heart racing.

JJ had been in the preserve last night. He hadn’t been home when Stiles went for his run and his car wasn’t in the drive and… his dad turned and shook his head.

Stiles exhaled in a rush, relief flooding his system. He didn’t like his sibling, sure, that didn’t mean he wanted him mauled to death.  

“I’m driving up to Beacon City,” his dad said, drying his hands, oblivious to Stiles’ momentary blind panic. “I’ll be gone all day, so assume I won’t be home for dinner.”

“Wait,” Stiles called, scrambling into the hall after his dad when his brain finally came back online enough to put the dots together. “Beacon City?”

His dad paused, hand on the door, clearly weighing how much to tell Stiles, which meant there was a lot to tell. And none of it was good.

Stile swallowed. “Dad?”

“I’ve got a meeting with the coroner.”

“They’re the same. The attacks in Beacon City and the ones here.”

“It’s looking like it,” his dad said carefully. “I’m taking the coroner’s report from our attack up there to get a second opinion, but.”

“You think they’re the same.”

His dad nodded.

Stiles slumped back against the wall.

There was a person, an actual _human being_ somewhere in Beacon Hills that was into brutally murdering people and making it look like an animal attack. He thought he might puke.

His dad came over and squeezed Stiles’ arms, ducking down to look him in the eye as he promised, “We’re going to get them, Stiles. They’re not as smart as they think they are and we’re going to catch them. Until then, I want you to be careful and use your common sense, okay?”

Stiles nodded slowly, still trying to process the idea of a murderer in quiet, sleepy Beacon Hills. “In not entirely unrelated news, I’m going to the firing range with Allison after I finish at the hospital.”

His dad nodded and patted Stiles on the shoulder.  “See if you can get your brother to go with you, okay?”

//

 _Sorry_ , Allison mouthed the minute Stiles walked in to the private three-shooter range that Allison’s family – and friends – used at the Argent Shooting Range, and for one blissful moment Stiles didn’t understand why she was doing her ‘please forgive me’ begging eyes and biting her bottom lip.

“Well hello there cutie.”

And oh hell _no_ , sorry did not even begin to cut it for that.

Stiles turned and pasted a polite, if not nice, smile across his face. “Hi. Allison’s aunt, Kate, right?”

Kate smiled at him through lowered lashes and leaned in. “Stiles, isn’t it? Haven’t you just grown right on up since I was last in town,” she said, leaning in impossibly closer, so he could feel her breath on his cheek. “But you’ve still got those big bambi eyes, don’t you?”

“Well,” Stiles said, casually slipping out of her personal space to collect his eye and ear protection from the rack by the door. “I am a teenager, it’s what we do. Grow.”

The corner of Kate’s mouth curved up as her eyes moved very obviously up and down Stiles’ body in a way that made him want to shower for a week. He didn’t let it show on his face, or in the line of his shoulders. Kate was pretty much a walking cougar cliché, except for the overly casual way she held a rifle against her leg, and his dad had always been very clear on not showing predators any fear.

Behind Kate, Allison’s face was turning an impossible shade of red. Oblivious to what was looking like the very real possibility that Allison was going to murder her own aunt, Kate cleared the empty shell casing from the rifle and passed it off to Allison without so much a backward glance.

Safety, apparently, was not Kate’s thing. Brushing up against Stiles, _again_ , was. “Why don’t I go get you something to play with, Stiles, and you can show me what you can do?”

“What is she doing here?” he hissed at Allison as soon as Kate was out of the room, his skin crawling. “I told you I didn’t want to spend any time with Aunt McBad-Touch.”

“It’s the _Argent Shooting Range_ ,” Allison snapped, eyes bright and fists clenched. “I came here to get _away_ from her, but what am I supposed to do? Tell her she can’t come to her own brother’s business?”

“If it means she’s not here creeping on me, then yeah!” 

Allison’s shoulders slumped and her face crumpled a little. “I’m sorry, Stiles, I really am. Kate’s making things really tense at home, but that doesn’t mean I should inflict her on you. At least she isn’t trying to grope me.” She pushed her hair behind her ear, eyes flitting to the door. “Go. Now, before she comes back and I’ll cover for you.”

Stiles shook his head, even though he really wanted to take her up on her offer. “I’d be a pretty crappy friend if I left you alone with her.”

Allison offered him a grim, but grateful smile and then Kate was back and way too up in Stiles’ personal space.

“Here you go cutie,” she said, pressing a 9mm into Stiles’ hand in a move that was so casually reckless Stiles had to bite his bottom lip against the safety rant that wanted to escape.

Allison didn’t look so far behind.

“I’m sure I could help you,” Kate drawled, handing Stiles the clip. “If you need a few pointers. I am more experienced than Allison, when it comes to handling weapons.”

“Thanks, but I think I’m good on my own,” he said, sidestepping her to the nearest booth and putting on his ear defenders and glasses before she could reply.

Stiles loaded the clip, flicked the safety off and emptied it into the centre mass of the target. When he called it back in, the shots were clustered together exactly where he wanted them, the closest thing to a perfect shot he could get with a handgun.

“Somebody’s been holding out on me,” Kate said, suddenly pressed behind Stiles, the curve of her breasts rubbing against his shoulder. “I think I’ve got a little competition for best shot in town.”

Stiles repressed a shudder, and the urge to vomit in Kate’s face.

“If you think Stiles is a good shot, you should see his dad,” Allison said, pointedly. “Sheriff Stilinski was an army sniper, and he’s still the best shot in the county.”

Stiles flicked the safety back on, removed the clip and pulled off his ear defenders. “Yup,” he agreed, adding cheerfully, “and he takes great pleasure in proving it.”

At county fairs and the department’s annual shooting contest, but Kate didn’t need to know that.

“And what about you, Stiles?” Kate asked, stroking a finger over the barrel of the 9mm in a way so suggestive Stiles would have had to been blind to miss what she really meant. “Do you take _pleasure_ in proving it?”

“No,” he snapped, because seriously? He might have been nineteen, but she was in her mid-thirties, super creepy and way into firearms, and that was a whole world of _no_.  

Kate wasn’t put off.

“So you don’t find a woman shooting a gun sexy?” she pouted, batting her eyelashes.

“I really don’t.”

JJ thought guns were totally cool and subscribed to the dumb American male school of thought that said hot women in bikinis with firearms were prime jerk off material. If he’d been there he would have been panting after Kate Argent like she was the second coming, regardless of Derek Hale.

Stiles, not so much.

Their dad had taught JJ and him to shoot when they were kids; their first trip to the Argent Shooting Range was a couple of weeks after their twelfth birthdays. Their dad was smart and pretty serious about keeping his boys safe, especially from themselves. JJ liked shooting games and playing cowboys and cops and pretty much anything with a gun and Stiles was a curious little shit that got into everything. So their dad had been proactive, teaching them about the dangers of guns, gun safety and when they were old enough, how to shoot so they wouldn’t hurt themselves, or anyone they didn’t mean to.

Stiles wasn’t in any way happy about holding something in his hand that could actually kill another human being, but he knew how many people managed to injure themselves trying to use a gun and if it came down to it he’d rather know he could shoot someone and not kill them instead of just pulling the trigger and hoping.

He still didn’t think they were cool. Or hot.

Kate’s pout deepened and she slipped a step closer. “Is it the gun or that it’s a woman holding it that you don’t approve of?”

Stiles shot Allison a look, but she was just as confused Stiles.

“Excuse me?”

Kate gave a shrug that she failed to make even look close to innocent. “I just thought maybe Derek Hale was more your type.”

Stiles glared at Allison who held her hands up behind Kate, face earnest as she shook her head and mouthed _I didn’t say anything_.

“Guns aren’t my type,” Stiles said, carefully. He couldn’t see any way in which Kate having any sort of intimate knowledge about him, or Derek, was going to be a good thing.

She quirked an eyebrow. “Then why are you at a shooting range?

“There are guns in our house, everyone feels better knowing we know how to use them. Just in case.”

“Just in case?” Kate smirked and for a moment, Stiles’ blood ran cold. “That’s good thinking there, cutie. Especially if you’re going to keep company the likes of Derek.”  

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Kate laughed, patting Stiles’ chest. “Don’t fall for Derek’s wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly-firefighter act, Stiles. He’s an animal.” She leaned in close, breath hot and damp against Stiles’ ear as she whispered, “You should watch yourself.”

“What-” Stiles started to ask, but Kate was already gone, blowing a kiss over her shoulder before the door to the private range shut behind her.

Stiles turned to Allison and found her face white with fury.

“What the hell was that about?” He demanded. For all Kate’s creepy and mysterious warnings against Derek, the only person he felt threatened by was _her_.

Allison let out a long, shaky breath and unclenched her hands. “Nothing.”

Stiles snorted. “Yeah, because that was totally nothing.”  

“Bad blood,” Allison said after a long pause. “Very bad blood.”

“Should _Derek_ be watching himself?”

Allison very obviously didn’t meet Stiles’ eyes. “He knows about Kate.”

“Should I be worried?”

Allison snapped her eyes to Stiles. “Derek wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

Which was an interesting response, and something Stiles already knew, deep in his gut. “I meant should I be worried about _Kate_.”

“Oh.” Allison’s eyes went wide, if only for a second. “No. No, you don’t have to worry. Kate isn’t dangerous, not to humans, anyway.”

Allison was the most honest and wholesome person Stiles knew, and that was saying something considering since he also knew Deputy Parrish, but that was blatant crap.

“Right,” Stiles said drawing it out with his disbelief, handing Allison his ear defenders and glasses. “I’ve got to go, I’ll catch you later Allison.”

//

Stiles forgot all about Kate’s super-creepiness. The next afternoon he was hanging out with Scott in the McCall back yard, lazily throwing a lacrosse ball between them and repaying his best bro for all his Derek support by letting him recount all the sappy details of the Skype call he’d had with Kira, who was spending her summer in Japan with her grandparents.

One minute Stiles was tuning Scott out to hope that when she got back from Kyoto they’d finally stop their cute but seriously awkward _friends who really like each other_ flirting and actually start dating, then Scott was shaking his shoulder.

“Dude,” Scott said pointing at the sky, suddenly dark with clouds, with his lacrosse stick. “We should go inside.”

“Yeah, Stiles agreed as lightning flashed into life way too close for Stiles’ liking. “Come on.”

Scott started wheezing as he climbed onto the porch. Stiles swallowed down the urge to panic and led Scott inside, sat him down at the kitchen table and gave him his inhaler.

It didn’t work.

Stiles ignored Scott’s wheezed protests that he’d be fine, that it would start working in a minute, and called 911. He’d been carrying a spare inhaler for Scott ever since he was eight and had seen Scott have an asthma attack for the first time. When he’d asked Mrs. McCall for the inhaler, she’d explained to Stiles how to use it and what to do if Scott had an attack when they were playing. Stiles had learnt Scott’s asthma action plan inside out.

Stiles had only ever used it twice before and those attacks had nothing on this one.

Stiles knew that Scott depended on him not panicking, so he breathed deep where Scott couldn’t, and counted each depression of the inhaler pump, taking over when Scott’s hands were shaking too hard to do it himself.

“You’re going to be okay,” he said, as much for Scott as himself as he glared at the clock, willing the EMTs to arrive.

Scott’s lips were blue and his eyes were starting to drop. Stiles’ heart climbed into his throat.

The EMTs, finally, _finally_ banged through the door and everything went hazy.

//

It took way too long for the EMTs to stabilise Scott and when they started talking about a tracheotomy if they couldn’t intubate him, Stiles pulled out his phone on autopilot and called the hospital.

“I need to speak to Nurse McCall,” he said to the operator. “It’s urgent, it’s about her son, Scott.”

“Stiles?” she answered when he was connected with her less than a minute later.

“Scott’s having an asthma attack, we’re on our way to the hospital.” He didn’t need to tell her that they were in an ambulance; there was no way she could miss the sirens blaring. “It’s a bad one.”

“We’ll be there in three minutes,” the driver called from the front.

Stiles repeated it to Mrs. McCall.

“I’ll meet you in the ER,” she said and hung up.

//

Mrs. McCall was waiting in the ambulance bay when the EMTs threw the back doors open, handing Scott over to the ER team that was waiting for them.

“Oh god,” Mrs. McCall breathed as Scott was wheeled past, unmoving and still a little blue. Her face turned white and she pulled Stiles to her, wrapping him up in a crushing hug and then it was the only thing keeping him upright as he totally lost his shit.

“He turned blue,” he gasped wetly into her shoulder. “He turned blue and he couldn’t breathe and his inhaler wasn’t working and I thought they weren’t going to show up in time.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she soothed, rubbing her hand over his hair as he cried and tried to remember how to breathe through the fear of losing Scott. “He’s going to be okay.”

She took Stiles inside and sat him down in the family room, put his head between his knees and counted each breath until they were almost coming naturally again. Until it felt like he wasn’t going to drown under the weight of his own panic and fear.

She kissed the top of Stiles’ head. “I’m going to see if they’ll tell me anything, okay?”

Stiles nodded. Mrs. McCall was Scott’s mom so she wasn’t allowed to treat him, ever, but if the doctor looking after Scott was one that owed her a favor then she might be able to get at least get in and see what was happening. Stiles closed his eyes and started counting his breaths again until his hands were steady enough to fumble out a clumsy, typo-filled, but legible text message to dad telling him what was happening.

Stiles didn’t know how long it was until Mrs. McCall came back, only that it felt like it had been forever. She handed Stiles a paper cup of water and dropped down in to the plastic chair next to him. For maybe the first time since she’d told Mr. McCall to get lost she looked old and tired.

“Scott’s going to be okay,” she said and a weight lifted from Stiles’ chest.

He took a deep, relieved breath and rubbed the tears out of his eyes with the heel of his hands. “Thank you, _thank you_ ,” he whispered, to no one and everyone.

“I probably don’t need to tell you, but that was the worst attack he’s ever had. They’re going to keep him in overnight, at least, and keep him intubated until the morning in case he has a secondary attack. We’re going to have to see his asthma doctor about his regular medication so this doesn’t happen again.”

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed, slumping forward and burying his head in his hands. “Let’s not do this again. Like, ever.”

Mrs. McCall patted him between his shoulder blades. “You did good, Stiles. You saved Scott’s life today, you know that?”

Stiles nodded. He did know that, though he wished he didn’t. He didn’t want to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t been there. If he hadn’t ignored Scott’s dumbass claim that he was fine and waited to called 911. When he wasn’t hanging on the edge of another panic attack he and Mrs. McCall were going to have to have a talk about how to make Scott not be an idiot anymore.

Mrs. McCall stood. “I’m going to go get you something to eat – no complaints, nurse’s orders, and a blanket. You’re not going to be able to see Scott until he’s stable enough to be moved up to a ward, but I’m not even going to try and make you go home before then.”

He looked up at her and his face was wet again. She knew him so well. “Thanks, Mrs. McCall.”

//

Stiles evaded all Mrs. McCall’s attempts to get him to leave the hospital, and _Scott_ , before the breathing tube was removed and Scott could tell Stiles in his own words that he was fine. Then Scott was awake and stuck in the hospital with no one to talk to except his mom when she stopped by and really, they were all crazy if they thought he was going anywhere.

Especially Scott.

“Stiles,” he whined, pouting. Stiles refused to look, he was weak under such pleading and he knew it. “I’m going to be fine while you go get a coffee and something to eat that’s not peanut butter cups. Just like I would have been fine last night if you’d gone home and slept instead of drooling all over my arm.”

“Shut up,” Stiles said, pointing at Scott and ignoring the trembling of his hand. “I didn’t drool, they were manly tears of concern.”

Scott rolled his eyes.

Stiles was glad that Scott wasn’t seriously effected, _emotionally_ , by his near death experience but that didn’t mean Stiles wasn’t. “The oxygen deprivation clearly caused some brain damage because in what universe was I going to go home last night?”

“One where you trust medical professionals like my _mom_ to do their job?” Scott huffed, like he wouldn’t have done exactly the same thing for Stiles. Like he hadn’t slept curled up in Stiles’ hospital bed when he had his appendix removed and dad was at home watching JJ.

“It was just an asthma attack,” Scott said with his ridiculously earnest face. 

Stiles stood up and punched him in the shoulder. Hard.

“Ow!”

“Just an asthma attack?” Stiles shrieked, all plans to wait until after Scott was out of the hospital to scream at him going up in flames in the face of Scott’s cheerful _alls well that ends well_ optimism. “Just an asthma attack! You were blue Scott, you almost _stopped_ breathing and they were going to _cut your_ _throat open and stick a tube in it_! That is not _just_ an asthma attack.”

“Dude, I know I scared you and I’m sorry,” Scott said softly, grabbing Stiles’ hand and squeezing tight. “But I knew it was going to be okay because you were taking care of me, and now that I’m okay for real it’s time for me to start looking out for you. I’m not dumb enough to think that I’m going to get you to go home until they let me leave but will you _please_ go and get something to eat and drink?”

Then Scott busted out the sad puppy-dog eyes and it was game over for Stiles. “Ugh, I hate you.”

“Nuh-uh,” Scott beamed. “You loooooove me.”

“Shut up,” Stiles said slipping out the door. “I’ll be back in ten minutes and then no more nagging me about anything until after dinner, bro.”

Stiles was too busy glaring at Scott’s smug face as he pulled the door shut after him that he didn’t see the person behind him until he’d already tripped into them.

“Oof,” he gasped, attempting to scrabble for balance without bad touching whoever he’d bumped. “Sorry, sorry!”

“It’s okay,” a familiar voice assured as strong hands curled around Stiles’ waist, steadying him.

Stiles heart sunk. “Derek,” he said, almost tripping over his own feet again as he turned around, co-ordination shot to shit by his total lack of sleep. “Hi. Sorry, again, I didn’t see you there. Behind me. Obviously, as I don’t have eyes in the back of my head, or James Bond style spy glasses. Not that I’m wearing glasses.”

The corners of Derek’s lips turned up in a smile that said Derek was laughing at Stiles inside and trying not to do it on the outside too.

Not that Stiles could blame him, he was a train wreck. “Did I mention I was sorry? For the bumping and the babbling, it’s like it’s a compulsion now. I can’t stop. Please stop me.”

“Hi, Stiles.” Derek’s smile turned full and bright and indulgent. Stiles heart skipped a beat and _oh_. That was the mute button everyone who’d ever met him had been searching for all his life.

“Hi,” he said again and wondered if he could bottle Derek’s smile. Not to sell, though he could make a fortune on the feeling it would give people, but for when he needed the ultimate feel good pick me up.

“Is JJ okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine.” Stiles frowned, the non sequitur snapping him out of the beautiful daydream of being able to have Derek’s smile whenever he wanted it. “Why?”

Derek pointed at Scott’s door. “You have another brother?”

“What? Oh, that’s _Scott_ ,” Stiles explained, leading Derek down the corridor towards the nurse’s break room, home to the better calibre of the hospital vending machines. “He’s my brother from another mother.”

Derek laughed. “Your _what_?”

Stiles grinned, some of the stress of the past twenty-four hours away floating away with the sound of Derek’s laughter. Forget bottling his smiles, Stiles needed that on tape more than he needed air.

“He’s my best friend,” he said, giving up on the battle to try and stop smiling at Derek like he was the sun or something. “Since first grade.”

Derek whistled. “That’s a long time.”

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed, his heart going pitter-patter with affection for his BFF. “He’s the best.”

Derek nodded towards Scott’s door. “Is he going to be okay?”

Stiles smiled died. “For now, yeah. He has asthma and the lightning storm yesterday trigged an attack. It was a pretty serious one.” And wasn’t _that_ an understatement. “His inhaler didn’t help and when the EMTs arrived they weren’t sure if they could intubate. They’re just monitoring him now, but his mom works here so I think they’re being super careful.”

It was easier to believe that they were being super cautious because they were all afraid of Nurse Badass McCall than the alternative. That Scott might not be out of the woods.

“That does sound like a serious one.”

“Right, you trained as an EMT,” Stiles remembered, which explained why Derek’s face was so calm and serious. He could probably guess that the EMTs were trying to decide between the possibilities of Scott’s brain not getting enough oxygen and fucking up while trying to perform a tracheotomy in a moving vehicle.

Derek reached out, squeezing Stiles’ arm. “He was really lucky you were there to call 911.”

Stiles nodded. Tell him something he didn’t know.

“Stiles!” Mrs. McCall shouted, coming out of the nurse’s break room, saving him from following Derek’s gentle, well-meaning concern down the rabbit hole of another panic attack. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing here?”

Stiles took a deep breath as she approached and let his mind do what it did best when he’d skipped his meds – get distracted again. He pointed at the break room and deliberately misinterpreted her, “Going to the vending machine?”

Mrs. McCall rolled her eyes. “I told you to go home. Last night.” She turned to Derek who was now lurking behind Stiles like _he_ was the one about to get in trouble. “Good morning, Derek.”

“Melissa,” he offered back, voice quiet and shy like he’d been the first time they’d spoken after the gas station incident.

Mrs. McCall gave Derek a smile that was way too flirty for Stiles’ liking, and then turned her laser mom vision back on him. “Well?”

“How do you know I haven’t been home?”

Mrs. McCall arched an eyebrow at him. “Aside from the smell?”

“Hey!”

Derek chuckled behind him. Stiles shot a glare over his shoulder, “You can shut up. I smell just fine,” he said, even though he knew it was a total lie.

Fear sweat had a distinctive and lingering smell that he was way too familiar with.

“Scott is going to be fine,” Mrs. McCall said, drawing his attention away from a very unapologetic looking Derek. “I promise. They’re only keeping him in for another twenty-four hours because there is a very unlikely case that he might have a secondary attack and I’m working a double tonight and want him where I can check up on him. Now go home or to our place, eat something that isn’t from a vending machine, take a shower and sleep in a real bed instead of the uncomfortable chair in Scott’s room. I’m finishing up in a couple of hours and I’ll be with him until afternoon visiting hours, when you can come back, okay?”

It was all totally reasonable, except for the fact that afternoon visiting hours were six hours away and Mrs. McCall was crazy if she thought he was going to leave, period, let alone for that long. “I would, but my car is at your place, so I guess I’ll just have to hang around until you go home to change before your shift tonight.”

“Derek,” she said over Stiles’ shoulder, pleading. “Help me out here.”

Derek stepped around to look at Stiles, eyebrows creeping down towards his eyes like a concerned caterpillar. “You’ve really been here all night?”

“He’s been here since they brought Scott in yesterday afternoon,” Mrs. McCall corrected before Stiles could brush it off.

Derek’s mouth fell open for just a second before he snapped it shut.

Stiles shrugged, cheeks burning. “I wasn’t going to leave until he could tell me he was fine all on his own. Yesterday was really scary, okay?”

“I know,” Mrs. McCall said, wrapping her arm around his shoulders. “And you’ve taken really great care of him, so now do me a favor and take care of yourself so I don’t have to worry about you too.”

“I’ll give you a ride home,” Derek offered, voice small. 

“It’s okay.” Stiles shook his head. It was just after nine, which meant Derek had to only just be arriving for his shift as most popular volunteer the hospital had ever seen. “I don’t want to put you out. I can call my dad.”

Melissa opened her mouth – probably to point out that dad wouldn’t be able to come until he finished his shift – but Derek beat her too it. 

“You won’t,” he assured, putting a hand on Stiles’ shoulder and turning him towards the exit. “Come on, the sooner you go home the sooner you can come back. And she’s not wrong about the smell.”

“Gee, thanks, man.”

“Thank you, Derek,” Mrs. McCall said, squeezing Derek’s arm before hugging Stiles. “Go take care of yourself, okay? That’s an order.”

Stiles grumbled his agreement and then let Derek lead him to the elevators and out into the bright morning sunshine. “You’re a really good friend,” Derek said, finally breaking the silence as they climbed into his Camaro.

“Aside from my dad, Scott is the person I literally care most about in the entire universe,” Stiles explained, fastening his seatbelt. “What else was I going to do?”

Derek’s hand froze on the ignition. “Really?”

“Really what?”

“I don’t know,” Derek said, snapping himself out of his shock and turning the engine over. “I just thought that it’d be JJ, that he’d be your best friend. I’ve got cousins that are twins and they’re inseparable.”

Stiles watched the hospital vanish out of sight through the passenger window as Derek started to drive rather than watch the way his fingers curled around the wheel, easy and competent and way too sexy for the conversation they were having. “Don’t take me home,” he said, as Derek stopped at the red light at the intersection outside the hospital. “Go to 214 Elm instead,” he added, before Derek could protest. “Scott’s house.”

“Sure,” Derek agreed and didn’t press Stiles any more on Scott or JJ.

If it had been Stiles he wouldn’t have lasted until the end of the block. As it was, the silence was ready to kill him by the time they pulled up outside the McCall house and it had been _his_ silence.

“Thanks,” he said, unfastening his belt and fumbling in his pocket for his keys.

Derek reached out, fingers curling around Stiles’ forearm. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I mean, not anytime soon, but when Scott’s home and on new meds and I’ve finished freaking out, sure.” Then Stiles caved, turning to look at Derek as he folded like a cheap suit. “JJ and I used to be like that, like your cousins, back when we were little. I told you how I was diagnosed with ADHD in first grade?”

Derek nodded.

“Well, it took most of first grade and to cut a long story short, I learned fuck-all that year and so they made me repeat. JJ moved up to second grade with the rest of the class and little kids are pretty shitty, you know, and no one wanted to hang around with the dumb Stilinski twin that got held back. Scott moved to town a month after school started and ended up in my class. The rest is history.”

Derek’s face dropped into something sad and oh _god no_.

“No,” Stiles said, pointing an accusatory finger at Derek. “Do not give me the pity face. Just because your cousins are super happy pod-people clones of each other doesn’t mean that JJ and I are actually the same. We might share the same DNA but we could not be more different as people. JJ is good at sports, he sings and plays the guitar, and has full control over his limbs and attention span. He’s always been popular. I’m the nerdy comic-relief twin. Aside from DNA and parents we have nothing in common and I can safely say we’re both pretty happy with the way things are. JJ has his friends, I have Scott who I have _everything_ in common with and the added bonus of liking me for who I am, not because biology forced us-.”

“Hey,” Derek interrupted, shifting his hand up to Stiles’ shoulder. “It wasn’t – I wasn’t -,” Derek sighed, frustrated.

Stiles slumped back into his seat, slipping out of Derek’s touch and huffed. “I don’t need your pity. You like JJ and think he’s great, I’m happy for you, but I’m fine with the way things are.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Derek said earnestly. “I wasn’t criticising and I don’t pity you. You don’t need to be the same as JJ or close to him. I just wanted to understand.” Then he added, softly, “And for what it’s worth, I think you’re pretty great as you are. Scott obviously does, too.”

Stiles’ heart ached, a sharp tearing behind his ribs. Derek thought he was great, just not as great as JJ. “Thanks for the ride,” he said, climbing out the car before Derek could say anything else.

Stiles’ day had been pretty crappy so far; he didn’t need any more false hope from Derek making it even worse.

The Camaro didn’t pull away until Stiles was inside, leaning against the front door and breathing in deep the smell of family and home.

//

Stiles managed to shower off the hospital funk and lingering stink of fear before the adrenaline crash and total exhaustion hit and he passed out face first on Scott’s bed, damp towel still wrapped around his waist. When he came to, it was dark outside and his stomach was making enough noise to wake the dead and felt like it’d given up waiting for him to feed it and started eating itself.

He pulled on a pair of boxers and a t-shirt, plugged his dead phone on to charge and went to rummage in the McCall’s kitchen. After inhaling a packet of chips, an apple and three glasses of water, Stiles put the coffee pot on and made a couple of rounds of grilled cheese. By the time he was done stuffing his face and buzzing himself awake by mainlining the entire pot of coffee, his phone had switched itself back on and blown up with messages, missed calls and voicemails from his dad.

“Urgh,” he groaned to himself, dragging on a pair of jeans, plaid shirt and hoodie that just about passed the sniff test, and hitting re-dial.

“Stiles, where the hell have you been?” His dad said in lieu of a greeting, picking up just after the first ring. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of your for the last twenty four hours.”

Stiles dropped down on to the edge of Scott’s bed. This wasn’t going to be the quick _hi, I’m fine, bye_ call he was, stupidly, hoping for. “With Scott, I think my phone must have died in the night. Mrs. McCall made me come home this morning, but I pretty much passed right out. I’m sorry,” he offered, trying to sound like he actually meant it, “I guess I wasn’t really thinking.”

“I’m at home right now, Stiles,” his dad said, voice tight, “and you are _not_ here.”

 _Fuck_.

“The McCalls,” he clarified, there wasn’t much point in trying to backtrack. His dad might have selective blindness at times, but he wasn’t dumb enough to fall for any excuse Stiles made to try and cover that the McCall house was as much home, maybe more, than the house he lived in. “She got me a ride back to their house from the hospital, because my Jeep’s here, so I can go back and visit Scott.”

That made his dad pause.

“Scott’s still in the hospital?”

Stiles remembered that he’d texted his dad something, he couldn’t remember what but he guessed it had been light on the details. And probably coherency, too.

He put his head between his knees. Just in case. “Yeah.”

There was another pause. “He going to be okay?”

“Yeah,” Stiles breathed and tried to believe it. “They’re keeping him overnight because Mrs. McCall’s on the night shift. He’s getting released tomorrow morning.”

“So I can expect you home tomorrow afternoon.”

It wasn’t, exactly, a question. Stiles frowned and was glad that his dad couldn’t actually see him. “What about work?”

“I’m waiting for the Beacon City Coroner to review our case against theirs. Until her report comes in, there’s nothing I can do that Parrish can’t handle just as well. You need me to come pick you up?”

Stiles rested his forehead on his knees. So much for the subtle approach. “I think I’m going to stay here, for a couple more days.” At least. Maybe forever, to make sure that Scott didn’t escape from the bubble Stiles was going to wrap him in the minute he got home. He was pretty sure Mrs. McCall would help him.

“Son,” his dad sighed, the disappointment and frustration so heavy in his voice that Stiles could as good as see it on his face, the slump of his shoulders. “I’ve got day or two, three at best, until I’ve got to take over from Parrish again at the station, and as much as I want this to be over quickly, I don’t know how long this case is going to run for. Your brother is leaving for college in a couple of weeks and the whole point of him coming back at the beginning of the summer vacation was so that we could spend time together. You can see Scott anytime, now you want me to come get you or are you going to drive home?”

Stiles took a shaky breath and was really glad he already had his head between his knees. “Yeah, no, neither of those.”

“Stiles-,” his dad grumbled, in warning.

Stiles cut him off. “I know you want me to come home and play happy families with you and JJ, but I can’t. I really, really can’t. I need to be here, with Scott and Mrs. McCall, until Scott’s okay and I can forget having to watch the EMTs decide if they should risk giving him a tracheotomy in a moving vehicle or let him go another two minutes without air and maybe give him brain damage.”

“ _Jesus, fuck_ ,” his dad muttered, almost too soft for Stiles to hear over the sound of his own wet, close, breathing. He wiped his face, not very surprised that his hand came away wet. “That bad?”

“Worse,” he choked out.

His dad had only ever seen Scott have an asthma attack once, when Stiles was thirteen and they’d been playing in the Stilinski yard. In the scale of all the attacks Stiles has seen Scott have, it wasn’t actually a bad one, but his dad had taken Scott to the ER anyway, where he’d been monitored overnight and fed ice cream by Mrs. McCall’s co-workers.

“He turned blue. I didn’t think he was going to make it,” he confessed, breath catching as the sense memory of the total blind terror came rushing back. “I thought I was going to watch him die and there was nothing I could do.”

“Stiles,” his dad said, voice soft but commanding. “Son, I want you to breathe with me, okay? Breathe in, and out. That’s it, in and out, and again, in and out.”

Stiles let his dad’s voice wash over him, tried his best to follow the calming rhythm of his orders of _in_ and _out_ , until his chest was moving on its own, even if his knees were damp and his shoulders shaking.

“You with me, kiddo?” his dad asked after giving Stiles a couple of minutes of silence to pull himself together.

“Yeah.” Stiles wiped his face on the bottom his t-shirt, ruined by more stress sweat. “Yeah, I am.”

“Okay, good. I want you to go get some water, try and drink at least two glasses for me, alright? I’ll be over in ten minutes; I’m going to drive you back to the hospital, because I don’t want you behind the wheel right now. That okay?”

Stiles’ chest tightened, for just a moment. “Yeah, that’s okay. Thanks dad.”

//

As promised, his dad showed up ten minutes later, during which Stiles drank his two glasses of water, changed again and given himself a stern talking to.

His dad patted him carefully on the back, before leading him to the cruiser, and didn’t say anything until they pulled up outside the main entrance to Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital. “I’m sorry, kiddo, for pushing you to come home, I didn’t know what happened with Scott was so bad. You stay at the McCalls as long as you need to, okay? So long as Melissa doesn’t mind.”

Stiles nodded, fumbling to unclip his seatbelt. “Thanks, dad.”

“Hey,” his dad said, catching Stiles gently by the wrist, then pulling him into a tight hug. “Come here.”

Stiles wrapped his arms around his dad’s shoulder and buried his face in his dad’s neck, breathed in the familiar smells of gun oil, laundry detergent and _dad_. He stroked a hand over Stiles’ hair before giving him one final squeeze. “You call me if you need anything.”

Stiles nodded again, climbing out of the car. “Try not to work too hard.”

His dad gave him a little salute before pulling away. Stiles watched him go before he went inside.

//

Scott was, as promised, released the next morning and brought home by Stiles and Mrs. McCall, to the soundtrack of both McCalls complaining that Stiles had spent another night curled in the chair next to Scott’s hospital bed rather than going home as ordered.

“It’s like you people don’t even know me,” Stiles declared, as they tipped Scott into bed.

“I’m fine,” Scott grumbled, as Mrs. McCall actually tucked him in like she hadn’t done to either of them since Stiles finally stopped having nightmares a year after his mom died.

She smoothed her hand over Scott’s forehead, and through his hair, not even batting an eyelid as Stiles kicked off his sneakers and jeans and crawled in beside Scott. “Well, maybe we’re not and you could humour us a little, huh?”

No had ever accused Mrs. McCall of not being insightful, and if they ever did, Stiles would use that very moment to prove to them all wrong.

She kissed both their heads. “Get some rest, both of you, hospitals aren’t exactly conducive to a good night’s rest.”

“Yes, mom,” Scott whined around a yawn.

Stiles was asleep before she even shut the door.

//

It was mid-afternoon by the time Mrs. McCall had woken them both up, ordered them both to take a shower, and fed them tomato soup and grilled cheese.

“Dr. Deaton says you can take off as much time as you need,” Mrs. McCall told Scott, ploughing over his protests that he was totally okay to go back to work. “And I told him that if you even try and set foot in there before Saturday, he’s to send you right back home again.”

“Mom,” Scott whined, in a pretty perfect impression of a toddler. “I’m fine.”

“You have an appointment with your asthma doctor on Friday. Until you see him, you’re with me or Stiles at all times, okay?”

Stiles mouthed _l love you_ over Scott’s shoulder to Mrs. McCall. Scott was pretty much helpless in the face of her very serious no arguments mom voice. It was awesome; especially when she was using it to make sure that Scott didn’t have another asthma attack on his own when it might actually kill him.

Scott looked at Mrs. McCall, then at Stiles, giving them both his sad puppy face. “I’m really sorry for scaring you guys-,”

The door went.

Talk about saved by the bell.

“I’ll get it,” Stiles shouted, tripping over his own feet to get out of the kitchen and away from the conversational train wreck that was about to happen. Three panic attacks in three days and extenuating circumstances or not, his dad and Mrs. McCall would talk about him going on meds again and oh hell no, his Adderall was enough of a pain in the ass on its own.

He flung the door open and blinked in surprise.

“Er, Derek. Hi?”

“Hi,” Derek said, offering Stiles one of his adorable, sheepish smiles and a foil covered pan. “I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to give you this.”

“This?” Stiles asked, taking the pan and wondering if this was some sort of stress-related hallucination.

Derek leaned into Stiles’ space and pulled back the corner of the foil covering the pan, revealing a tray of dark, gooey-looking chocolate goodness. “Brownies.”

Stiles stared down at the pan of brownies again for a long moment. They looked really good, even if they did feel like the ultimate mind fuck. “Not that I’m ungrateful, because who doesn’t love brownies, but er- why are you giving me brownies?”

Derek’s feet did an adorable shuffle on the McCall’s welcome mat as Derek scratched the back of his head. “I wasn’t sure what to get you, and I guess I figured – who doesn’t love brownies?”

“Not me,” Stiles tried to agree, then realized how it actually sounded. “I mean, I don’t not love brownies. I mean, yes, I love brownies, and I’m totally down with you bringing me brownies for no reason but I’m really confused right now and you need to stop me before the word brownies loses all meaning for us both.”

Derek’s fingers curled around Stiles’ elbow, a warm, careful pressure that made his heart skip a beat. “Is Scott okay?”

Stiles nodded, the lingering tension in his chest starting to loosen at the realisation that he wasn’t trying to convince himself as well. “He’s fine, they released him this morning. I think it’s fucking up his mom and me more right now than him.”

Derek squeezed Stiles’ elbow. “I guess that answers my second question.”

Stiles frowned.

“If you’re okay,” Derek said, letting go of Stiles’ arm.

Stiles repressed a shiver at the loss. “I will be. I’m just a little out of synch, with my sleep and my meds and I’m not going to lie, I’m still pretty freaked out.” Stiles lifted the tray and smiled, weak but genuine. “These will totally help.”

Derek’s face brightened, then softened back into something sadder, more serious with a lot of eyebrow game going on. “I wanted to apologize.”

Stiles’ stomach dropped. “For?”

“Yesterday, in the car. You were tired and upset and I shouldn’t have made you feel like you had to defend yourself and your relationship with Scott.”

“Oh. You totally don’t have to apologize for that, I was kinda a jackass to you, after you gave me a ride and everything.”

“I sort of deserved it.”

“You really didn’t.”

“Then we’ll agree to disagree. I just wanted you to know I meant it when I said I don’t pity you. I actually do think it’s pretty great that you’re your own person and that you have Scott. I… I think Scott’s pretty lucky to have you, too.”  

Stiles swallowed, clutching the pan of brownies tightly. “Most people don’t get that,” he confessed, even though it hurt to force the words out. To admit that nearly everyone in his life, except Derek, the McCalls and his therapist, thought he was some kind of dysfunctional for wanting to be his own person, not a weird shared-personality twin-clone. That he’d thought Derek was just like everyone else.

Derek shrugged. “I’m not like most people,” he said, a dangerous curve to his lips and glint in his eye that made heat pool in Stiles’ belly, and lower. Derek’s nostrils flared, then he took a step back, nodding at the house. “I’ll let you get back inside, Scott’s waiting. I’ll see you around.”

Stiles looked over his shoulder, and Derek was right, Scott was lingering at the bottom of the stairs. Totally drawn by his crazy accurate baked goods radar.

By the time Stiles looked back around, Derek was already gone from the porch, almost at the sidewalk.

“Hey, Derek?”

Derek paused and turned. “Yeah?”

“How did you know I’d still be here?”

Even from the end of the front yard, Stiles could see the corner of Derek’s mouth turn up into a small, _breathtaking_ , smile. “I came to where a good brother would be.” Derek gave Stiles a quick wave and then was on to the sidewalk and unlocking his car.

Stiles watched as Derek drove away, lost for words, and impossibly, more in love with Derek than ever.

“Brownies?” Scott asked hopefully, over his shoulder.

Stiles nodded. “He bakes, Scott. He bakes. I need to marry that man, stat,” he said taking the brownies into the kitchen.

//

Scott went back to work on Saturday, a week after his asthma attack, with a new inhaler, asthma plan, and follow-up appointment with his doctor booked.

“You have to stop freaking out,” Scott said, failing at pulling on his sneakers and pushing Stiles out of the McCall house at the same time.

“I am not freaking out,” Stiles protested, arms wind-milling.

“You are so freaking out and you’re going to make me late for work.”

“Are you-?”

Scott groaned and threw a sneaker at Stiles’ head. “I’m fine. Dr. Deaton isn’t pressuring me to go back, I told you. I’m ready to go back and as much as I love you bro, you need to go home. I want my bed back and if you stay here any longer, I think your dad’s going to think we’ve kidnapped you.”  

“Urgh,” Stiles groaned. “It’s not a kidnapping if I _want_ to be here.”

Scott punched him in the shoulder, and then pulled him into a hug.

“Mixed messages, bro,” Stiles mumbled into Scott’s neck.

Scott smacked him upside the head. “Go home.”

//

His dad was waiting for Stiles when he got out of the Jeep, standing in their door wearing a rumpled looking pair of sweat pants, an old BHSD tee and at least ten more years on his face than the last time Stiles saw him.

“Hey, dad,” Stiles greeted him as he jogged up the porch stairs.

His dad pulled him into a hug as soon as Stiles was in reach, tugging him in and holding him tight with one arm around his neck and running a hand over his hair. “Hey kiddo.”

Stiles laughed and patted his dad’s back, grinning when he finally pulled away. “Missed me, old man?”

“When I said stay with the McCalls as long as you needed, I didn’t think you’d be gone so long I’d forget what you looked like.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Yeah, because there’s literally no one in this house who looks just like me.”

His dad laughed, giving him a gentle shove into the house. “But for some reason your brother never managed to master the art of eye-rolling quite like you did.”

That was actually true, and Stiles was damn proud of the levels of sarcasm he could inject into rolling his eyes. “You’re right, daddy-o. JJ’s sarcastic teenage eye-roll game is pretty weak, but he makes up for it with the nostril flare.”

His dad snorted, diverting off into the kitchen, but not fast enough to stop Stiles from seeing his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. Stiles was pretty sure JJ’s nostrils could swallow whole planets, like facial black holes, they got so huge when he was pissed off.

“You want breakfast?” his dad asked.

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Not if you’re making it,” he said, following his dad, whose breakfast skills amounted to burnt toast and soggy cornflakes.

He stopped as he passed the entrance to the dining room. The table was covered in coffee cups, yellow legal pads, and at least eight case files along with the paperwork, reports and photographs from inside them. Stiles could see the Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Department logo on some of the reports, and the obvious kind of splashes of red on the corners of the photographs hidden under mounds of other paperwork.

Stiles’ stomach rolled and he was suddenly really, seriously, glad that he didn’t eat anything before he left the McCall’s.

“Stiles?” his dad called.

Stiles swallowed. “I didn’t miss another attack, did I?” He’d been so caught up in what happened to Scott that he’d actually forgotten that a girl had been murdered in Beacon Hills, that there was probably a serial killer in Beacon County and the weight of catching them was resting on dad’s shoulders.

His dad turned and Stiles looked at him again, and looked for real this time. This wasn’t his dad in Saturday morning chill mode; this was Sheriff Stilinski after working on case files through the night.

Stiles’ stomach clenched. While he’d been at the McCall’s freaking out over Scott, no one had been at home making sure his dad wasn’t working himself into an early grave, because Stiles would eat his left sneaker if JJ even once checked in on him, let alone made him go to bed.

“No,” his dad said, crossing over to Stiles, resting his hand on Stiles’ shoulder. “We’ve been lucky so far. The pattern of attacks seems to be holding, which means we’ve got another two weeks to catch this son of a bitch.”

Stiles nodded at the explosion of police work on the dining room table. “So does this mean you’re making progress?”

His dad sighed, scrubbing his hand over his face. “I’m going to need coffee if we’re going to talk about this.”

Stiles followed him into the kitchen, accepting the cup of coffee that his dad poured him, and adding milk and sugar. His dad propped himself up against the counter, rubbing his face again between chugs of black coffee. Stiles waited.

“Laurie, the coroner up in Beacon City reviewed the autopsy report from our victim.”

“I remember. You drove up to Beacon City. You thought it was a person,” a shudder ran down Stiles’ spine, “and wanted confirmation.”

Stiles didn’t need his dad to say he’d gotten it; it was all over his face. Stiles put his coffee down. “Her report concluded that the attacks were by the same perp.”

Stiles dropped his head down and took a couple of deep, long breaths. “Fuck.”

There was a serial killer in Beacon Hills.

A _serial killer_.

“Yeah,” his dad agreed sombrely. “It’s enough of an argument for it being a human attacker that Beacon City PD are actually starting to take it seriously.”

Stile wasn’t stupid; he knew how this shit worked. “Are you shitting me? They’ve been half-assing the case because it’s a rabid animal and so it’s animal control’s problem, not theirs, and now that it’s a person they suddenly give a crap?”

“Language,” his dad chided, automatically. “But yeah, this week has been a bit of a department pissing match. Beacon City PD tried to include our victim as part of the wider case, which they’re claiming is theirs as that’s where the first victims were.”

“But whoever is doing this is obviously in Beacon Hills now, that makes it _your_ case.”

“Yeah,” his dad said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Though I won’t lie and say I wasn’t tempted to let ‘em have it.”

Stiles frowned.

“I take the case, I’ve got to solve it kiddo,” his dad shrugged, “and if I don’t I’ve got to live with that.”

“And that’s why you took it,” Stiles said and couldn’t have been prouder of his dad.

Even though his dad totally had his faults when it came to the JJ and Stiles situation, he was an amazing cop and an even better Sheriff. It was impossible not to look up to him, not to want to be him. Stiles didn’t know how JJ had spent nineteen years living with him and not want to be a cop just like Stiles.

His dad nodded, giving Stiles a small, wry smile. “If I don’t catch this bastard, if he kills again then I know it’s not because I’ve not done everything humanly possible to put this guy away; that it’s not because I took the easy route and let those jackasses at Beacon City PD take over when all they care about is saying they put away a serial killer, not protecting our town.”

Stiles crossed the kitchen to his dad and pulled him into a crushing hug, the sort he reserved for Scott and very serious Stilinski men moments. “You’re going to catch them dad. No one else is going to get hurt.”

And he believed it.

//

Stiles went back to the hospital the next morning to spend a couple of hours volunteering to make up for all the slacking he did while Scott was ill, even though it was Sunday and he hated the amount of bible reading he had to do. His dad left just before Stiles to drive up to the county forensics lab, even though it was a Sunday, to talk to their director about getting priority on the workups ordered for the animal hairs pulled off the Beacon Hills and City victims. He hadn’t seen JJ since he got home the morning before, and because he really wanted to keep it that way he went to the library to avoid JJ’s prime time for being collapsed on the couch hungover and demanding Stiles act as his personal squire.

What he wasn’t counting on was finding Derek Hale there. 

“Stiles!” Derek said from the checkout counter, greeting him with the mega-watt smile that never failed to make Stiles’ heart skip a beat. After almost a week of not seeing Derek, he should have come with a health warning.

“Hey,” he returned, detouring over to where Janet – the librarian with a life-long grudge against Stiles for being a sticky and enthusiastic library visiting toddler – was checking out a seriously impressive stack of books for Derek.  

“Hey,” Derek said, dialling the smile down to less blinding but just as heart melting. “What are you doing here?”

“In the library?” Stiles smirked, sarcasm overriding the heart flutters and possibly publicly embarrassing cock twitches. “Waiting for a bus, obviously, or hey, maybe I’ll catch dinner and movie.”

Derek snorted. “Okay, point taken. I mean, are you browsing or looking for something specific?”

“Actually,” he said, turning his attention to Janet and grinning widely at her. “I’m here to collect my order.”

Janet narrowed her eyes at Stiles, adding the last of Derek’s books to the top of his pile and handing him back his library card. “You were supposed to collect them on Monday.”

“Family emergency,” Stiles said, though he knew she wouldn’t cut him any slack.

He was right. “I suppose you want me to see if we still have them.”

Stiles gave her his most obnoxious smile. “Yup. That’s why I came.”

She tutted before getting up and going into room behind the checkout desk, muttering under her breath as she went.

“Wow,” Derek breathed once the door slammed shut behind her.

Stiles laughed. “I know, right? She totally hates me.”

“What did you do?”

Stiles shrugged. “I don’t think she even knows anymore, just that the grudge is lifelong.” He nodded at the pile of books Derek was loading in to bag. “That’s a lot of reading.”

“My first shift with my station starts tomorrow morning. Need something to pass the time between calls.”

“That’s tomorrow? Oh wow, good luck with that.” Stiles looked nosily at Derek’s book selection, totally ready to judge him on his reading material, only he couldn’t understand any of the titles. He turned his head to the side, but they still didn’t make any sense. Until, “Wait, are these all in Spanish?”

Derek nodded shyly, “Yeah, I-”

Whatever Derek was going to say was cut off by Janet slamming Stiles’ books down on the counter. “Mr Stilinski,” she snapped. “Your library card, _please_ , unless you don’t want these after all.”

Stiles rolled his eyes at Derek before turning back to Janet and handing over his card. “Helpful as ever, Janet.”

“Don’t lose them,” she sneered, once she was done, pushing them across the counter.

“I won’t,” Stiles promised cheerfully. “I might highlight a couple of pages though,” he added, just to watch the muscles in her neck tense. “And eat as I read. Sloppy Joes, fully loaded nachos, coffee from my favorite mug, even though it drips. You know, the usual,” he shrugged, turning to Derek with an innocent grin. “I think I’m good, now.”

Derek looked torn between amused and horrified until he looked down at the collection of books in Stiles’ arms, which all had crime, murder or forensics in the title. Then it was curious. “Some light reading?”

“Oh you know,” Stiles grinned. “Nothing like planning a little light murder to make a Sunday fly by.”

Derek let out a loud, startled bark of laughter, before he smothered it with a hand over his mouth.

“Sh!” Janet hissed, to their left as soon as he was done. They both turned to look at her, finger pressed to her lips and eyebrows forming a seriously angry V behind her glasses.

Stiles could see Derek keeping his mouth covered out of the corner of his eye and that made him a better man than Stiles. Stiles laughed.

“Sorry, Janet,” he said, very obviously not sorry at all.  

“This is a library,” she whispered venomously, hands on her hips.

Derek looked mortified.

Stiles couldn’t resist and asked him, “Is that Spanish for _where no fun shall be had on pain of shhing_?”

Janet turned a shade of red Stiles was pretty sure didn’t exist in nature and looked ready to do a Linda Blair impression and puke pea soup all over them. Stiles hadn’t seen her so mad since he was 13 and returned a book with a grape soda stain on the cover.

“I’m very sorry. We’ll be leaving, now,” Derek said, cheeks flushing an adorable shade of pink as he grabbed Stiles’ wrist and pulled him out the main doors before dropping his bag of books and doubling over with laughter.

Stiles was right behind him, laughing until his face was wet with tears, his sides hurt and it was almost impossible to catch his breath. “Your face.”

“ _Her_ face,” Derek gasped between guffaws.  

Stiles forced himself upright, wiping the dampness from his face with his shirtsleeve and taking a couple of deep breaths until the pain in his sides started to ease. “I told you, she hates me. She decided I was her ultimate nemesis when I was three and it’s been war ever since.”

Derek straightened, picking up his bag of books as he went. “Come on, let’s go get a coffee and you can tell me all about this murder you’re planning.”

The way Derek smiled at him as he asked, it was impossible to refuse. “Sure.”

//

“I’m not actually planning a murder,” Stiles pointed out when they’d settled in a coffee shop down the street and Derek had refused to let Stiles pay for his own order.

“I figured,” Derek chuckled, his grin turning cheeky. “Well, I _hoped_.”

“Okay, no, that’s a lie,” Stiles said extra-thoughtfully, because two could totally play that game. “I’m actually planning at least thirteen murders, I just don’t intend on following through on any of them. Right now.”

“That’s a relief,” Derek said dryly. “Though not so much that there are thirteen people on your hit-list. Are these all people who have grievously wronged you or did you just like the number?”

Stiles cackled, not caring that at least four people were staring at him. “No, I’m just really good at holding a grudge. Ask JJ. Better yet, ask JJ in twenty years.”

Derek quirked an eyebrow over his mug, “Should I be worried about being on it?”

“Nah, you’re pretty safe,” Stiles grinned around his straw. “For now.”

Derek choked on his coffee. “Well, gee, I feel so much better.”

“Hey, I’m just warning you,” he said, trying to hide his grin behind his iced coffee, but probably totally failing. “Piss me off and I’ll murder you with my brain.”

“If anyone could kill someone with their brain, I think it would be you.”

Stiles almost snorted coffee out his nose. “You say that like it’s an insult, but I take it as the highest compliment. My brain is awesome.”

“That I already knew,” Derek said, and the tops of Derek’s ears turned pink.

Stiles’ heart did a back flip inside his chest, and then in a prime example of his being the master of his own downfall, drew attention to his own mooning by fumbling with his drink. Derek’s lighting fast reflexes saved his jeans, and his junk, from taking an iced coffee bath.

“Thanks,” he said, Derek’s fingers brushing his as he put Stiles’ cup back in his hands, curling his fingers around the sweaty plastic. His cheeks were burning, even though it was a typical klutzy Stiles move, so normal he would have instantly forgotten it happened if it hadn’t been in front of Derek.

“My brain is awesome, yes,” he joked, gesturing at himself. “My hand-eye coordination, not so much.”

“Hand-eye coordination is over-rated,” Derek grinned, nodding at Stiles’ pile of books where they were stacked on the empty chair next to him. “You can get away with murder, how many people can do that?”

Stiles threw his head back and cackled again, relieved that Derek destroyed whatever weird tension Stiles had been creating with his epic crush.

“More than you’d think,” Stiles finally answered, when he’d pulled himself back together and the surrounding tables had stopped staring.

“I suppose you hear a lot about things like that, with your dad being the Sheriff.”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Not that I’m supposed to. He’s not big on bringing stuff home, mostly because he knows I’m a curious little shit, but I spend enough time hanging around the station anyway, and he gets pretty invested in the big cases. It’s pretty easy to tell when they go cold. It gets to him.”

“He’s a good Sheriff.”

“He’s a good cop,” Stiles added. He knew he was biased, but that didn’t make him wrong. His dad had been a deputy for years before he was elected Sheriff. “He doesn’t work cases like he used too, but he was, _is_ , a really good cop.”

“You really look up to him,” Derek said, softly. Surprised.  

“Of course I do,” Stiles said, manfully resisting the urge to add _duh_ on the end. “I know it’s a little dorky to be so proud of your dad, to want to do the same job as him, but he’s a total crime-solving badass.”

“It’s not dorky at all,” Derek said and Stiles realized he hadn’t been surprised. He was _sad_. “It’s good that you have a dad you can be proud of.”

Stiles wracked his brain for any sort of memory about Derek’s dad and found none. As far back as he could remember the Hale family had always been Talia, her kids and her brother Peter… _Hale_. Stiles felt like a jerk for assuming Derek was like everyone else, mocking him about his dad.

“I’m really lucky,” he said awkwardly but one hundred percent truthfully. He was so lucky to have his dad, who despite his faults when it came to JJ, had still been awesome before and after mom.

Derek took a long drink of coffee and cleared his throat. “So, you want to be Sheriff someday?”

“I’m not seriously planning on getting away with murder,” he said, reaching over to tap the stack of library books. He recognized a deflection when he saw one and this one he was going to respect for change. “I’d probably make a pretty shitty Sheriff, but I want to be a cop. I’m going to study Criminal Justice at Irvine and then apply to the police academy.”

“Have you always wanted to be one? A cop?”

“For as long as I can remember. You know, other than when I wanted to be Han Solo, or Batman, or a space pirate, or the one summer we went to the beach, a mermaid.”

Derek chuckled and Stiles breathed a silent _thank you_ that he hadn’t totally killed Derek’s good mood.

“I always liked puzzles,” he carried on, happy to fill the silence. “When I was little, mom used to read me all these kiddie safe mysteries she found so I could try and work out who did it before the big reveal. I was pretty good at it, too.” He giggled as a long lost memory resurfaced. “JJ hated watching Scoobie Doo with me. He’d beg mom or dad to change the channel, but I loved it.”

“Let me guess, you always guessed the villain before he did,” Derek said with a wide, happy smile.

“I did.” Stiles grinned. “I used to tell him too, because I was a little shit like that, but JJ was born competitive and it was the one thing I was really good at that he wasn’t. He’s way more like dad than I am, except for wanting to be a cop.”

Derek giggled. Actually _giggled_. “Sorry,” he said, holding a hand up, like Stiles would care about anything in the face of the sheer beauty that was Derek Hale’s giggly face. “I was just imagining JJ as a cop.”

Stiles lost it a little, because wow, that was a hilarious and terrible mental image. “I think we should all count ourselves lucky he’s never once considered a career in the law,” he gasped, burying his face in his hands until he could look at Derek without laughing again.

“Your dad must be proud of you,” Derek eventually said, and Stiles could feel the undertow of sorrow. “That you’re following in his footsteps.”

“I think he is, yeah,” Stiles answered honestly. Derek deserved that much, at least. “He said he always knew I was either going to be a cop or a scientist.”

Derek quirked an eyebrow in question.

Stiles supposed he could see how they weren’t traditional either / or profession choices. “JJ grew out of the ‘why’ phase. I didn’t. I always had another question to ask. I think I probably drove him and mom a little crazy.”

“You and JJ really are nothing alike, are you?” Derek said and it still didn’t sound like he thought it was a bad thing.

“No. Not even close. I think that’s why dad’s so happy that I’ve always wanted to be a cop. Well, other than being super relieved I’m not using my brain to take over the world, it gives us something to connect over.”

“You said he and JJ are more alike?”

“I’m way more like our mom.” The ache of her loss flared up, like always, in his chest. The gaping hole she’d left behind, the only person in their family who really understood him, who didn’t see anything that needed changing when they looked at him. “She was a total sci-fi / fantasy nerd, she loved cooking, reading and computer games. She was funny, and a real caretaker to the people she cared about, and even more klutzy than me, which was pretty impressive. She had mild ADHD too so understood my attention issues better because she had them too. Dad is the outdoorsy, sporty A-type personality that may sound familiar, seeing as how you’ve met JJ. Did you know JJ stands for John Junior? It’s actually pretty accurate, whereas if it wasn’t for the cop thing, the only stuff we’d have in common would be our love of the Die Hard movies.”

“They’re good movies,” Derek nodded, a mixture of sorrow and longing all over his face and Stiles hated himself for putting it there again.

He wanted to wrap Derek in a hug and never let him go, let him share his dad with him and JJ because he loved taking strays under his wing and they’d probably adore each other. He wanted to say sorry for seeming so ungrateful for his dad, when he wasn’t, when he didn’t know what he’d do without him. That it didn’t matter that they only had two things in common, it was enough, because he was his dad and no matter what, Stiles loved him and his dad loved him back.

And just when Stiles thought he couldn’t love Derek any more than he already did, Derek added gravely, “Except for the last one.”

“Oh my god, so crap,” Stiles groaned, using it as the out they both needed. “Am I right? Tell me I’m right, then call JJ and tell him I’m right too. He actually likes the fourth one, the freak.”

Derek pulled a face. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

Stiles held his hands up. “I wish I was. I told you, we have nothing in common. I got the good taste in movies. He likes Die Hard 4 and actually went to see all the Twilight movies in the theatre.” With Lydia, but that was beside the point. Stiles was a virgin and even he wouldn’t go see a Twilight movie to get laid. “He fell asleep during The Fellowship of the Ring and he’s never seen Star Wars. Any of them.”

Derek looked genuinely scandalized. “Unforgiveable.”

“Tell me about it. At least I don’t have to worry about him stealing all my best DVDs when he goes to college next month.”

Derek’s eyebrows joined to forces to make a confused, and kinda pissed off caterpillar on his face. Stiles swallowed down hard the urge to tell him that’s what he looked like. “You’re not taking them to Irvine?”

“I’m not going until next fall,” Stiles said, wishing he could rewind time and put his last sentence back in his mouth. It wasn’t like Derek would notice that he was still in town come the end of August, but explaining why JJ was going away to college and he wasn’t never failed to be awkward as fuck.

“When JJ and I turned eighteen dad gave us some of the insurance money from mom, to help towards college. JJ got a full ride on a lacrosse scholarship, so he used his to take his big South America trip. I graduated second in my class, but having ADHD and being the class clown doesn’t make for great recommendation letters. I got a partial scholarship through an obscure law enforcement charity one of dad’s deputies told me about. So, I’m doing next year at Beacon County Community College to get all my pre-reqs and then transferring to Irvine, in the hopes of making it out of college without any crippling debt.”

Stiles fidgeted in his seat, turning his attention on chasing the last drops of coffee from his cup with his straw, rather than looking up and seeing the pity that had to be on Derek’s face.

“That’s great,” Derek said, pretty much the last thing Stiles expected to hear.

He looked up and Derek was grinning, flashing Stiles his happy eye crinkles and adorable bunny teeth. It was too fucking much. “It is?”

“Yeah,” Derek said, smile getting impossibly wider as he slid out of his seat. “I have to go, I need to meet someone, but if you’re not going to Irvine this year, you can come to the midnight screening of the new Star Wars film with me at the IMAX in Beacon City.”

“Er, sure,” Stiles agreed, stomach doing excited flip-flops at just the idea of Derek andStar Wars. _Together_.

Derek squeezed Stiles’ arm as he passed. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said, then was gone with the tinkling of the bell above the door.

Stiles dropped his head to the table and whimpered. Just when he thought Derek couldn’t get any more perfect, he did shit like that.

//

JJ finally came home the next morning when Stiles was sitting in the kitchen, eating breakfast before getting ready to the hospital. Stiles couldn’t have cared less about where JJ had been or what he was doing, only he was so obviously freshly fucked, and so damn smug about it, that it made Stiles throw up in his mouth a little.

“Do not even think about coming near me,” he warned as JJ closed the fridge to drink OJ straight from the carton, like the animal he was.

JJ snorted. “I bet you’d be in a way better mood if you actually ever got laid,” he said, oblivious to how Stiles was plotting his murder with a kitchen knife.

“Maybe I should get you a hooker or something,” JJ continued airily. “Finally pop that cherry.”

Anyone else would fall for his ditsy _oh I didn’t know that was a mean thing to say_ blonde routine. Stiles wasn’t anyone else. He clenched his teeth and braced himself.

“Only I don’t know if we could find anyone who’d be willing to fuck you, even if I paid them.”

Stiles pushed his bowl away and left the kitchen, turning to tell JJ as he left to, “Drop dead.”

“Love you too, SS.” JJ cackled behind him.

“Hate, hate, _hate_ ,” Stiles chanted all the way up the stairs.

//

A couple of hours later Stiles was feeling less like going on a crazy murder spree, starting with his twin and ending with him all over the floor, walls, and every other surface in between. The kids in the pediatric oncology ward had been super happy to see him and his homemade Harry Potter hand puppets. Mrs. Ellison’s family had finally been able to fly in from Australia, and they smothered him with tearful hugs and thanks for making sure their mom had someone keeping her company during her last days.

It wasn’t exactly getting laid, but it was a pretty solid reminder of why he was a billion times better person than JJ.

That, and he was eating half of the chocolate cake the Ellisons had given him with Mrs. McCall at the nurse’s station.

“How’s Scott?” he asked, when he’d finally reached the point where each new mouthful was a stomach Russian roulette – would it be the one that made him hurl?

“He’s fine,” Mrs. McCall said, abandoning the cake to pick at the frosting. “It’s going to take some time to be sure, but the new regime seems to be working okay for now and he’s being more careful.”

“Good.”

“And what about you? I know we all got a little caught up in what happened to Scott, but that doesn’t mean you have to keep things to yourself.”

Stiles shrugged. Not that he would ever admit it out loud, because if he could go back in time and stop Scott from having the attack, then he would in a heartbeat, but it had been a pretty good – if pants-shitting levels of terrifying – way of avoiding the JJ problem for a while.

“JJ’s a jerk. I’m counting the days until he goes to college. Same shit, different day.”

Mrs. McCall gave him a quick, but tight, sideways hug and kissed his head. “I have to get back to work, but remember. Scott and I are here for you, no matter what, and very soon JJ will be being a jerk in another state and somebody else’s problem.”

Stiles laughed as she went, purple scrubs vanishing down the hall and into the elevator. He packed up the rest of the cake and left it with the rest of her stuff, a sticky-note with a smiley face on top.

//

 

Stiles swung by Nerd Heaven on the way home to comfort shop something in the shape of his future husband. The other one. He hoped Derek was into polyandry and Chris Evans' Captain America, because he never failed to raise Stiles’ spirits. Or his dick. And Nerd Heaven, crappily though accurately named, fulfilled his needs and emptied his wallet.

When he was done, there was a fire truck parked outside the store and a collection of firefighters in the park across the street. Never one to let a collection of hot, buff guys and the opportunity for large hoses gags to pass him by, Stiles went to see what was happening as it was pretty clear nothing was on fire.

He knew it was a total long shot – there was more than one fire department in Beacon Hills – but Derek was on shift and it was Stiles’ duty to himself to try and ogle him in his sexy uniform.

Stiles crossed the street and hit _jackpot_.

Derek wasn’t just on shift, and _hot like burning_ in his uniform, he was on a ladder up a tree rescuing a kitten. A tiny, fluffy, mewling kitten.

It clawed at Derek’s shirt as he made his way down the ladder and Stiles wasn’t sure if it was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen in his life or the funniest.

“You guys are jerks,” Derek said to the guys in his crew, who collapsed into hysterical laughter the second Derek’s feet hit solid ground.

Stiles could see where they were coming from. The kitten had mauled its way up Derek’s shirt and neck, leaving tiny scratches behind in its quest to sit on his head, and his hair was almost as messy and full of leaves as the kitten’s.

Stiles resisted laughing at Derek. Mostly. He didn’t resist pulling his phone out and taking a couple of pictures of Derek looking like he was channelling Grumpy Cat and trying to extract the kitten, who was still trying to climb Derek like he was its new tree.

“Hey, Stiles,” Derek said, finally noticing him lurking at the edge of the crowd that had been watching, and cutting off any thoughts Stiles might have been having about climbing Derek like a tree himself. “What are you doing here?”

“Enjoying the show,” he chuckled, reaching out to pet the kitten on the head. It mewled again, tiny and helpless. “I didn’t realize firefighters actually rescued kittens from trees.”

“We don’t usually,” he said, giving up on trying to corral the kitten and letting it gnaw on his ear. “I’m pretty sure they took the call to fuck with the new guy.”

Stiles cackled a little. “I like your co-worker’s style.”

Derek expressed his disapproval with some very strong eyebrow game. “You didn’t just spend the last twenty minutes up a tree.”

“Twenty minutes? Man, I only just got here.” Cruel, cruel fate. “Talk about missing the show.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Derek said, dry as the Mojave. “I saw your Jeep when we arrived. Were you in Nerd Heaven?”

“You even have to ask? It’s like you don’t even know me.” Stiles had never been one of those nerds who was ashamed of being in to comics and fantasy and sci-fi, even before it was cool. “I shop in there so much I should probably own shares or something.”

“It was still Greg’s Comics when we moved out of town.” He nodded at Stiles’ bag. “Get anything good?"

“Yeah,” Stiles scoffed. “It might have a lame name, but it’s way more awesome than Greg’s Comics ever was. I got a couple of movie magazines for the Jurassic World features, the latest Justice League and a t-rex action figurine because Scott’s freaked out by their tiny arms and I’m going to tease him with it like a total jerk. Oh, and a water bottle with Chris Evans' perfect face all over it. It's for kids, but like I care about that.”

“It's a good face,” Derek agreed, crossing his arms over his chest.

His arm muscles glistened and bulged in the afternoon sun. Stiles imagined him and Chris Evans making out. Shirtless. It was awesome.

Real life Derek’s face twitched.

“It really is.” Stiles coughed, trying to shift subtly to make sure Derek couldn’t see the situation he was trying to stop from arising in his pants.

“Oh,” he added, deflecting. “And I finally got a copy of Astonishing X-Men #51.” X-Men wasn't Stiles' jam, except for McAvoy and Fassbender’s epic love in the movie versions, but gay superhero weddings in comic canon were _awesome_.

"I'm not really into X-Men," Derek said with a shrug. "But I have that one. I think 15-year-old me would have made some seriously better choices if there’d been a gay superhero wedding in comics."

Stiles needed a minute to process that. “You read comics as a kid? Weren’t you, like, reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez in the original Spanish or something?”

Derek laughed so hard he almost dislodged the kitten who yowled in protest. “Yes. That's exactly what I was reading at 15.”

Stiles was having to adjust his world view again. “You were seriously into comics?”

“Avengers, mostly,” Derek said and Stiles heart skipped a beat. It wasn't Batman but the Avengers were still pretty awesome. “Other stuff too. I had hundreds of comics, until the fire.”

“Dude," Stiles breathed. "That sucks.”

Derek shrugged. "Things can be replaced. People can't. I was lucky to only to lose comics."

"Yo, Sleeping Beauty!" someone shouted in their direction, saving Stiles from the probably fatal embarrassment of cracking a _comics are better than people_ joke.

Derek looked over Stiles' shoulder and nodded. Stiles turned to see that the rest of Derek's crew had packed away the equipment and were waiting by the truck.

"Time to wrap it up," one of the guys said before they all started piling into the fire engine.

Stiles turned back to Derek, waggling his eyebrows. "Sleeping beauty?"

Like he was going to let that one go.

Derek looked at the sky, lips pursed, before sighing. "I'm never going to live this down."

Stiles laughed. "And now you have to tell me."

"I almost fell asleep after lunch and I totally got caught with my head nodding. It's not like you don't get to sleep on a 24 hour shift, just not at lunch."

Stiles winced. "Yeah, you're never going to live that down."

"I know," Derek agreed, resigned. "I just didn't sleep very well last night and we had a tough call this morning."

Somewhere behind them, what had to be someone from Derek's crew whistled, sharp and piercing. Derek winced at the noise and Stiles could see it, the hints of dark circles under Derek's eyes and the slight line of exhaustion in his shoulders.

Then it all clicked into place like a horrible jigsaw puzzle.

Derek hadn't slept. JJ got home around the time Derek's shift had started, surrounded by _just got laid all night and again this morning_ smugness.

It was like a reality bomb going off in Stiles' face. With everything that had happened with Scott; the distraction of his attack, spending so long at the McCalls, staying away from JJ, he'd forgotten. Forgotten that Derek was off limits. That Derek was JJ's and he was supposed to be getting over Derek, not mooning over him.

He'd fucking forgot that Derek was bad for his emotional health. That he was fucking his twin. That they couldn't be friends, for the sake of Stiles' sanity if nothing else.

"I have to go. We're taking this little guy to Deaton's, the vet," Derek continued, oblivious to Stiles' internal turmoil. "I get off shift at 8 tomorrow, and I was going to swing by on my way home to check on him, then maybe get some breakfast. If you wanted to come. With me, that is."

Stiles swallowed, took a step back and braced himself for how much what he was going to do sucked. "No, but thanks for the offer."

Derek looked like Stiles had kicked his puppy. "Oh. You have other plans?"

Stiles shook his head slowly and pictured JJ's face, the smug, _sexed out by Derek Hale_ one, to stop him from chickening out and making shit even harder in the long run.

"No, I just don't think we should be hanging out so much. People will get the wrong idea."

People like Stiles' heart, which was already way too invested in his doomed relationship with Derek.

"I-," Derek floundered, looking lost for words and genuinely hurt by Stiles' declaration.

Never had Stiles been so relieved to be interrupted by an irate firefighter as that moment. "Derek, move it or we're leaving without you."

Stiles took another step back to let Derek pass, giving him an awkward wave. "See you around," he said, though he sort of hoped not.

Derek wouldn't look him in the eye as he left.

"Fuck my life," Stiles muttered to the sky. He already felt shitty enough about what he'd done without Derek making him feel worse.

He waited until he heard the engine pull away before heading back to the Jeep. As he crossed the street, he saw Kate Argent at the other end, leaning against her car and watching the engine as it rounded the corner out of sight.

Stiles climbed into the Jeep and as he checked the mirrors, he saw her walking away from her car and towards him.

"Oh hell no," he said, turning the engine over and pulling away.

His day had been bad enough without adding being sleazed on by creeper Argent, groping edition, to the mix.

//

Stiles allowed himself the next day to mourn Derek and the loss of his beautiful face and awesome personality from his immediate future. It sucked, but he had to cut himself off.

After a whole day of watching all the Marvel movies back to back, wearing his sweatpants and Captain America shirt, and only leaving his bed to get more Cheetos, he wasn't feeling awesome but maybe like he could face a Wednesday. So he decided that it was totally unfair that when he went for a run, he ran into Kate Argent at the edge of the preserve and this time, there was no escaping her.

“Bambi,” Kate smiled at him as he ground to a halt in front of where she was blocking his path, and the smile was wide and cold and mean. Stiles’ breath caught in his chest and his heart pounded and none of it had anything to do with the three miles he’d just clocked.

Kate was standing next to her SUV with a rifle slung over her shoulder so casually it might have been a backpack and there was no world in which that could be a good thing.

"Fancy meeting you here," she purred, cocking her hip and closing the SUV’s trunk. She wasn't fast enough to stop him from spotting that the rifle wasn't the only gun she was packing.

"At the risk of sounding like my dad," he said around the lump in his throat, "do you have a permit for that?"

"Of course I do," she giggled, batting her eyelashes. If she was trying to look innocent and girlish, it wasn't working. "Guns are the family business."

And _fuck_ , if that wasn’t what made her really dangerous.

Stiles nodded at the preserve. "You know you can't hunt in there, right?"

"I'm aware. Just going for a little target practice. It's not the same at the range." She pouted, moving in close enough that his personal space was fully violated. "It's such a shame, the Argents are a long line of hunters. Did you know that, Stiles?"

"Can't say that I did," he said, taking a large and obvious step back.

She followed. "It's in our blood. Have you ever heard of La Bête du Gévaudan?”

“The Beast of Gévaudan?” Now that was totally random, even for Kate.

“You’ve heard of it?” The edges of her lips curved into a smirk that sent a shiver of the very bad kind down Stiles’ spine.

“I Wikipedia binge when I can’t sleep.” He shrugged.

“Then you know,” Kate said, running a finger down Stiles’ sweaty sternum, “that the beast terrorized the Gévaudan region for three years. It attacked hundreds of people, killing men, women and children by ripping out their throats. Do you know why it stopped?”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t a change of heart on the throat ripping and the killing,” he said, as Kate backed him up against the SUV.

“Jean-Baptiste Argent. His wife and four children were the first victims of the beast and he swore to destroy it. He hunted it for three years before he caught it and killed it for what it did to his family. Do you know what the beast was?”

Stiles shook his head.

“A wolf. The Argents have been wolf hunters ever since,” Kate announced, stepping back with the sort of confidence Stiles imagined came easy when you killed helpless, unsuspecting animals for fun.

“Only wolf hunting is illegal,” he pointed out, slipping away from the SUV. “Except in Canada and Alaska, which we are not in.”

Kate quirked an eyebrow at him. “Wolves are dangerous, Stiles. You should remember that.”

Stiles nodded slowly, taking another step back. “Good thing there aren’t any in California.”

“That’s what you think.”

“Well,” Stiles said, taking another step back and starting to jog on the spot. “I have to go, don’t want to cool down.”

And he really, _really_ needed to get away from the super crazy.

Kate winked at him as he went, calling after him, “Be careful out there, Bambi.”

//

Stiles got home from dinner and video games at the McCalls late that night to find his dad at the dining room table, papers and files spread across it and a bottle of Jack Daniels and an empty glass at his elbow. A cold, heavy weight settled into the bottom of Stiles’ stomach and all plans to tell his dad about Kate hunting in the preserve and the guns in her trunk vanished in a cloud of smoke. It had been a long time – years -- since Stiles had last seen him like this over a case.

“Fiber analysis on the hairs back yet?” Stiles asked, dropping into the chair opposite him.

His dad nodded and poured a pretty restrained measure of Jack Daniels, considering he was sitting in front of six autopsy reports. “Yup. Got the reports back from DNA testing this afternoon.”

Stiles’ whole body tensed. “And?”

“Wolf.” His dad finished his JD and poured another measure.

Stiles blinked. “Wolf? That has to be a mistake, right?”

His dad shook his head and took another slug from his glass before pushing it away and rubbing his hands over his face and hair. “Nope. They ran it twice more to be sure. All the animal hairs pulled from our victim and all the ones in Beacon City. Same DNA profile, all of them, and I’m betting if we’d checked the animals that were attacked too, they’d have found the same on them.”

“But there aren’t any wolves in California,” Stiles pointed out. “At least not any wild ones.”

His dad dipped his chin to give Stiles his patented _who’s the cop here_ look. “Funnily enough, I looked into that already. We’ve checked with all the wolf sanctuaries in the state and none of them have misplaced any wolves recently or otherwise.”

Stiles chewed on his bottom lip. Lining up all the facts it was easy to see why his dad had resorted to JD at the dining room table. It made zero sense. Not even a little, because the pattern of attacks suggested that it was a person not an animal. And even if it was somehow an animal, a wolf was just plain crazy.

“Even if a wolf had magically gone missing without being reported, you really think a wolf could attack a load of random people in Beacon City and then, what, hitch a ride to Beacon Hills with no one noticing?”

His dad gave Stiles a look that said exactly how dumb he thought that suggestion was.  

Stiles slumped back in his seat. “Of course you don’t.”

“Who ever is doing this is going to a lot of trouble to make it look like animal attacks.”

“Which makes a sick sort of sense,” Stiles said, because he had to give credit where it was due. “Make it look like an animal attack and get away with murder.”

His dad looked at Stiles for a long moment, before fixing him with a grim smirk. “Have I ever told you, kiddo, that I’m really glad you’re planning on using your brain to become a cop rather than a criminal mastermind?”

“Who says I can’t do both?” Stiles laughed in relief at the slight break in the tension of the room, and his dad shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Then it hit Stiles like a lightning bolt to the brain. “Wait, that plan _doesn’t_ make sense.”

His dad quirked an eyebrow. “It wasn’t _actually_ a career suggestion.”

Stiles waved his hand at his dad. “Pfft, no, not that. That very obviously doesn’t make sense seeing as how I can’t lie for shit. I mean the whole ‘fake a wolf attack and get away with murder’ plan. If there are no missing wolves and no wolves in the wild, even taking the change in location from Beacon City to Beacon Hills out of the equation, anyone with half a brain could spot the plot hole a mile away.”

His dad smirked at Stiles and invited him to continue with a wave of his hand.

Stiles did, he was on a roll. “I mean, if you’re going to try and get away with murder by making it look like an animal attack, wouldn’t you make it look like an animal that was actually possible? Like maybe a mountain lion, or cougar?”

His dad pushed a report across the table at Stiles, because of course he was already three steps ahead of Stiles and had it all worked out. His dad didn’t get elected as Sheriff twice for nothing.

His dad tapped the fourth line on the report. “You’d also probably not leave traces of gunpowder on the wolf hair.”

 

His dad smirked at Stiles and invited him to continue with a wave of his hand.

Stiles scanned the rest of the trace residues the report listed as found on the hair. “Gunpowder and _Aconitum noveboracense_? Wait, that’s northern blue monkshood. Isn’t that pretty poisonous?”

His dad nodded. “Deadly, in the right doses, and still pretty dangerous in smaller amounts.”

Stiles read the report again. “This makes literally _no_ sense. Like, none. Why would you put a highly poisonous plant in a bullet? And that’s not even thinking about why you’d use wolf hair when you know any sort of serious analysis is going to out the attacks as not being animal ones.”

His dad shrugged, then reached back across the table to finish the abandoned glass of JD. “Wish I knew, kid. The more pieces of this I find, the less it makes sense.”

Stiles chewed on his pen, taking full advantage of his dad being in need of a sounding board and at least two JDs loose to flick through all the case files spread across the table. “Any connection between the victims?”

“The ones in Beacon City all lived within three blocks of the recreation ground at the edge of the city limits where they were found,” he explained, pulling out a map marked with five crosses on it. “Beacon City PD haven’t been able to find any other connection between them and we can’t find anything between any of them and Alice, our victim. We’re starting to look at people who have moved into town from the Beacon City area between the last attack up there and ours.”

 _Derek_.

Stiles’ heart thumped inside his chest. Derek had recently moved from Beacon City to Beacon Hills.

He would be a suspect.

His dad would question him, ask him for an alibi, and what if he couldn’t…

 _No_. Stiles refused to finish that thought. Derek was a firefighter with a fluffy heart of gold. He wasn’t a brutal killer, even if he did have terrible taste in men. Stiles knew it wasn’t him, and he’d gotten his dad’s skill for reading people in the genetic lottery. Stiles had called out Matt Daehler as a first class creeper long before he was caught using a removable brick in the outside wall of the high school to take photos of girls changing in the locker room. He’d prove he was right about Derek too, somehow.

Stiles had obviously been silent long enough for his dad to come to his senses, because when Stiles finally snapped out of his _Derek possibly getting arrested for something he didn’t do_ -related panic, his dad was packing up the case files. “It’s a person doing this kiddo, one hell of a sick person. I’m not making this public yet, so not a word, not even to Scott.”

Stiles nodded quickly. “I promise.”

His dad studied Stiles for a moment, sitting back when he was finally satisfied Stiles meant it. “I don’t want to tip them off yet that we’ve found out it’s not an animal and risk them running, or changing up their pattern. All the attacks have been on the full moon, so there’s a pretty good chance we’re not going to see another one for at least another week and a half and that gives us time to stop them. Still, I want you to be careful, okay?”

“Full moon?”

His dad nodded. “It looks like it’s part of the pattern for whoever’s behind this, but there’s no telling if or when they might start escalating. I don’t want you or JJ taking any risks, you hear me?”

Stiles nodded, but the late night wiki-binge alarm bells were already blaring a red alert in his brain. “Dad. Another name for monkshood is wolf’s bane.”

His dad paused, eyebrows creeping up in disbelief. “You’re not going to try and tell me that I’m looking for a werewolf, are you?” 

“What?” Stiles frowned. “No, I’m pretty sure werewolves aren’t actually real. But varieties of aconite were used to kill wolves, that’s where the name comes from.”

“So you’re telling me we’re looking for someone who _thinks_ werewolves are real?”

Stile shrugged. When his dad said it like that it didn’t actually sound any less crazy than suggesting Beacon County Sheriff’s Office should be looking for a werewolf.  Still. “You say that like anyone who fakes wolf attacks is acting based on any sort of logic.”

His dad’s head rolled back and he laughed, sharp and brittle and not funny at all. “Think you’ve maybe got a point there, kid.”

//

“Yo, Allison. Crazy question for you,” Stiles said when Allison answered her phone the next morning. It was a little early, but Allison liked to go to the local gym’s early morning yoga session before work and Stiles had been up all night running through what his dad had told him about the attacks.

The _murders_.

There was only so much self-restraint he could practice at one time and most of his was being used up on not pawing at Derek like the horny teenage he in fact was. 

“Sure,” Allison greeted cheerfully, like she was ever anything else, except for when Kate was around. “I can’t promise you a crazy answer though. Crazy is more your area than mine.”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.”

“I’m a comedian,” she giggled. “I know.”

Stiles huffed down the line. “I’m not even touching that.”

She tutted, the amusement in her tone belying her disapproval as dirty, filthy lies. “What crazy thing did you want to ask? I’ve just started doing inventory with dad, soooo…”

So hurry it the fuck up. Mr. Argent might have, eventually, warmed to Stiles after Allison’s epic break up with Scott, and once it became apparent Stiles had no interest in her remaining virtue, but Stiles still had a sensible and healthy fear of his displeasure.

“Right. Question. Have you ever heard of bullets with monkshood in them?”

There was a pause, before Allison asked, her voice incredulous. “Monkshood?”

“Yeah, sometimes called wolf’s bane,” Stiles explained, throwing in his fact of the day for good measure. “Because of how people used to use it to poison wolves.”

Allison was silent. So silent Stiles checked to see if the call had accidentally dropped. “Allison?”

“You’re right, that is a pretty crazy question,” Allison said with a laugh that Stiles didn’t need to see her face to know was forced. “Why do you ask?”

Stiles sat up in his desk chair, paying a lot more attention to what Allison wasn’t saying as much as what she was. He wished he’d called her on facetime instead of just voice calling her, because he really didn’t want to believe what his instincts were telling him – that Allison was hiding something.

“I can’t really say without getting a certain law enforcement officer who shall remain nameless into trouble for sharing confidential information on active investigations,” he offered, not giving her anymore than she could have worked out on her own.

“The girl who was killed?”

“Sooo,” he said, drawing it out to avoid answering. “Monkshood bullets, are those like an actual thing?”

“No,” she answered. Way too quickly. “No, they’re not.”

“Sooo,” he repeated, stalling for time to decide how much information to give. He refused to believe that Allison was behind any of the attacks; she didn’t even go on the Argent family’s annual hunting trips. She was a _vegetarian_. If she knew anything, it wasn’t because she was behind it. “Say someone wanted to put a ground-up, poisonous plant into a bullet-”

“I don’t really know why anyone would want to,” she interrupted, her tone careful, level.

“But if they did?” Stiles pressured, because he was getting more certain by the minute that she knew _something_. “Is that a thing someone could do?”

“I guess,” she said and that was totally a _yes_.

“Could anyone do it?”

“No, not really,” she answered and this time, Stiles believed her. “You need equipment to make your own bullets and it’s not exactly simple, or cost or time efficient.” She paused, her breaths coming down the line a little quick, but measured. “Stiles, what’s this about? These are pretty crazy questions, even by your standards and you’re freaking me out.”

He’d heard Allison freaked out and whatever she was, it wasn’t freaked.

If anyone was freaked it was him, because Allison knew way more than she was letting on. What else did she know and _how_? He didn’t want to believe she was involved, that she knew something that could help and she hadn’t come forward with it, but it wasn’t like any other explanations for her weirdness were waving themselves around in front of him.

“Hey, I’m not looking to make wolf-killing bullets, I promise,” Stiles laughed, turning on the deflective charm of goofy ADHD Stiles, to cover just how fucked up he thought this shit was. “I just got stuck in a wiki-binge and you know me, too curious for my own good.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, though she didn’t sound like she was buying it. “I know what you’re like.”

“No need to make it sound like an insult,” he laughed, keeping up the _everything’s normal, nothing to see here_ act. “Look, I gotta go. Can you do me a favor?”

“Depends on the favor,” she said carefully.

Stiles weighed his options and decided it was worth it, to hear her reaction if nothing else. “If you hear of anyone talking about custom bullets, other than me obviously, or hunting wolves, can you tell my dad?”

There was another telling pause, followed by an even more telling increase in the pitch of Allison’s voice. “Hunting wolves?”

“Yeah, I told you this would sound crazy and it probably is, but humour the crazy dude. Please?”

“Sure,” Allison agreed. “Bye Stiles.”

She hung up before he could say anything else, and Stiles was certain that if Allison did anything it wasn’t going to be to tell his dad.

His stomach clenched and he worked very hard on not thinking about the implications.

“Well,” he told his cell phone as the home screen went dark, “fuck.”

//

Trying not to think about the implications of his very weird and highly suspicious conversation with Allison worked for approximately three minutes. Which, in fairness, was about two minutes longer than he’d been expecting.

He went downstairs, but found the place empty. It was too early for JJ, who was either up snoring away in his room or more likely, not home yet from spending the night at Derek’s. There was no sign of his dad.

The files and papers were gone from the dining room table, the coffee pot was warm but empty and a look out the front window confirmed the cruiser was gone from the drive, the Jeep moved off the street to replace it. Then he found the note taped to the back of the front door.

_Gone to work. Stopping at the range on the way home, back around eight. Dad._

Stiles sloped back into the kitchen, set another pot of coffee going and scratched his left nut while he worked through what the fuck he was going to do next.

On one hand, he’d totally broken his promise to his dad that he wouldn’t tell anyone that the death in Beacon Hills wasn’t actually an animal attack. Sure, he hadn’t told Allison explicitly, but Allison was smart enough to put together the pieces of information Stiles had given her – she obviously had – and his dad would say it was all semantics anyway. On the other hand, Allison was being super freaky and totally knew _something_ , which was the sort of thing that the Sheriff needed to know.

Stiles just wished he knew why.

Whoever was behind the deaths was obviously a total psycho, new to town, had access to firearms and experience using them, and an unhealthy obsession with wolves being mindless murdering beasts. Allison would never hang out with someone like that, let alone protect them.

 _Unless_.

The coffee pot beeped, like a light bulb going off over Stiles’ head.

Kate.

How the fuck had he missed it.

Kate Argent was a fucking _prime suspect._

Stiles poured himself a cup of coffee. He had to tell his dad. Not telling him wasn’t an option, not when there was a serious possibility that Kate was getting ready to kill someone else in Beacon Hills on the next full moon because of some crazycakes need to continue the Argent’s wolf hunting glory.

If Kate stuck to the pattern which, given her delusions, was actually pretty likely, then Stiles didn’t _need_ to go the station right away. Then when he had to confess his conversation with Allison and his dad did the whole shouting, followed by disappointed sighing and _I trusted you_ ’s, Stiles could at least face his humiliation alone. And y’know, the rest of the station wouldn’t actually hear his dad admit to sharing the details of an active murder investigation with his teenage son.

Really, he wasn’t being a coward. He was just thinking about his dad.

//

That evening Stiles opened the front door to find Deputy Parrish on the other side. “Oh hey, Jordan. Dad’s not here right now; he said he was going to hit the range after work. You want to come in?”

Jordan smiled, stepping inside with a polite nod. “Actually, it’s you I wanted to speak to.”

Stiles gave him a pointed glare. “ _Me_ me or JJ me?”

Jordan did his adorable _oh shucks_ chuckle that had men, women and children everywhere fawning all over him. Stiles had, thankfully, developed a pretty solid immunity in reaction to it through both repeated exposure and a healthy fear of what his dad would say if he ever so much as caught Stiles looking lustfully at one of his deputies who was over ten years Stiles’ senior.

“You you,” Jordan assured him, as Stiles led him to the kitchen and poured him a cup of coffee, black two sugars, and handed it over. Deputy Parrish, unlike most of the station, had never fallen for JJ’s attempts to pass off his minor misdemeanours as Stiles’. “Thanks.”

Stiles pulled himself up onto the kitchen counter, bare heels thumping against the cabinets. “So what can I do for you today, Jordan?”

“I’ve got a couple of questions I need to ask you.”

Stiles’ feet stilled. Jordan pulled out his official notebook.

“Should I be asking for a lawyer, _Deputy_?”

Jordan laughed, clicking his pen on. “Nothing like that, Stiles. Your dad asked me to come, because it’s less contentious if he doesn’t have anything to do with the statement.”

Stiles raised his eyebrows. “I’m making a statement now, am I?”

“It’s just a couple of routine questions, Stiles,” Jordan said calmly, offering Stiles his most charming _calm the skittish witness face_ and Stiles wasn’t going to fall for it. He wasn’t. “C’mon, you really think I’d try and pull something with you? You can call your dad, if you want. He’s still at the station.”

His dad’s day shifts usually finished at six. It was ten after seven. Stiles threw Jordan an accusatory glare.

“Or maybe that’s not a good idea,” Jordan backpedalled, hands up in surrender. “How about you just tell me where you were between eight and nine pm on the 14th, that’s the Friday three weeks ago?”

“Am I a suspect?” Stiles actually squawked, because what the actual fuck?

Jordan raised an eyebrow in a move that said Stiles was being so dumb it hurt and he had to have picked that up from the Sheriff. “We’re just trying to verify the whereabouts of someone who’s being questioned in the natural course of our investigation.”

And it was such a bullshit placatory cop thing to.

“ _Derek_? He’s questioning Derek Hale?” say that it actually took Stiles a minute to put it all together. To think back to Friday and what he’d been doing… And _oh Jesus_

Jordan valiantly resisted the urge to smirk. “What makes you say that?”

“Because you’re here to verify an alibi and I’m _his_ alibi.”

“So you can confirm you were with Derek at the time in question?”

Stiles nodded, a little too ardently judging by the look Jordan threw him. “Yeah. I was at the gas station on Richmond and Derek... he thought I was JJ. We talked for like, ten – fifteen minutes, then I paid for my gas and went to Scott’s.” Stiles jumped down from the counter and grabbed his wallet, flicking through the mess of receipts shoved in with the notes until he pulled out the one he was looking for. “Eight twenty-six,” he declared, handing it over to Jordan.

“Thanks, Stiles,” Jordan said, making a note of the date and time on the receipt in his notebook before handing it back. “Keep a hold of this for the time being, yeah?”

Stiles nodded, the blurted out, unable to stop himself. “Derek didn’t do this.”

“Oh really?”

Stiles shifted, acutely aware that this would probably get back to his dad, but he decided he didn’t care because Derek didn’t kill anyone. He knew it and he had a really fucking good suspicion about who did. “I know him, a little, and I know he didn’t do it. He actually climbed a tree to rescue a stranded kitten on Monday. He didn’t do any of this.”

“Hey,” Jordan said softly, putting his hand on Stiles’ shoulder and squeezing gently. “Your dad doesn’t think he did, but he moved into town around the right time and he’s got to ask the questions. Okay?”

Stiles nodded and as much as he wanted to believe Jordan, he wasn’t sure he could. If there was enough circumstantial - and totally bullshit – evidence against Derek then his dad would be forced to do something, whether he believed Derek was innocent or not. Stiles felt sick. He had to get his dad to take Kate in for questioning and prove it was her, not just before she killed again but before Derek’s career was destroyed by small town suspicion.

Jordan patted his shoulder again and then let go. “I’ve got to get back, but try not to worry. Whoever this is, we’re going to catch him.”

Stiles nodded again and showed Jordan to the door. “Is dad questioning anyone else?”

Jordan threw him a sympathetic smile. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “And you know dad will tell me when he gets home.”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to wait for him to get back then, won’t you?” Jordan shot over his shoulder with a smug grin, before getting into his squad car.

The sick feeling didn’t go away.

//

When his dad got home from the station a couple of hours later, Stiles was waiting for him.

“You actually brought Derek Hale in for questioning?” he demanded, arms crossed over his chest.

His dad shut the front door behind him and stared at Stiles, the long suffering _what did I do to get stuck with you_ one, before going upstairs.

Stiles stomped into the kitchen, shoving a dish of leftovers into the microwave and setting them to heat before waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs.

“Well?” Stiles said, when he finally came down, gun in the safe and dressed in old sweats.

“Not that I am in any way obliged to tell you anything Stiles, but yes I did. You know we’ve ruled out this being an animal attack, so now we’re focusing on human suspects.”

“And Derek is a suspect?”

His dad’s eyebrows shot up and Stiles realized that maybe, just maybe, the pitch of his question had been a little to close to shrieking. 

Stiles swallowed and tried to sound a little more like his balls had actually dropped. “Derek the kitten-saving, hospital-volunteering, firefighter is a suspect?”

“We’re interviewing everyone who’s moved into town from Beacon City in the last month or so, and anyone who works up there too.”

“But _Derek_.”

“Derek’s movements fit the pattern of attacks, which makes him an automatic suspect. Son, I realise that you’re…. invested in Derek’s innocence and keeping his name clear, but I can’t ignore him in an investigation just because you have a crush on him.”

“What? Crush?” Stiles spluttered, brain screaming _DENY DENY DENY_ because he didn’t need his dad poking around into why Stiles didn’t just ask him out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, you crazy old man.”

“You’re not exactly subtle, kiddo,” his dad said, patting his shoulder on the way to the couch. “And you’re not stupid either. You know how this works. If we don’t question Derek, we can’t eliminate him from the investigation.”

Stiles dropped into the recliner next to the couch. “And you’ve eliminated him?”

His dad gave an almost nod. “We’re in the process of confirming his alibis for here and in Beacon City.”

“What about Kate Argent’s alibis?”

“Kate Argent?” his dad asked, with just enough confusion to give Stiles a seriously bad feeling.

“Yeah,” he prompted. “Allison’s super creepy, extra skeevy aunt. She lives in Beacon City with Grandpa creeper but she’s annoying the crap out of Allison by being in town since just before JJ got home.”

Just before the first attack in Beacon Hills. 

His dad frowned. “She’s been staying with Allison the whole time?”

“Shouldn’t you know this?” Stiles groaned, wishing he had hair he could pull. If Kate wasn’t on his dad’s radar, convincing him she was solid suspect would be way harder. “You’re questioning _pillar of the community_ Derek Hale and you’ve not brought in Kate Argent, who is practically a walking After School Special on bad touches.”

His dad went dangerously, deadly, still. “Stiles,” he said through a clenched jaw, “are you saying that she’s done something to you?”

“Ew, no,” he said, miming barfing at just the thought of it. “Not unless you count the dangerous fondling of handguns in an attempt to arouse a teenager almost half her age and a complete disrespect for personal space, then yes, she really has done something.”

“And why is the first I’m hearing about this?”

Stiles ignored his dad’s _you are in so much shit_ voice and glare and rolled his eyes. “Because I’m not actually underage, even if I did just finish high school and because you’ve kinda had bigger things on your mind lately.”

His dad scrubbed his hand over his face. “Jesus.”

“Though in retrospect,” Stiles admitted with a shrug, “maybe I should have, but in my defense, she just seemed like a creepy cougar, not an actual murderer. Now I’m taking that all back, you have to bring her in for questioning.” 

His dad gave him his most super intense cop stare. “You really think that Kate Argent is a suspect? That she’s capable of killing six people?”

“Kate has always freaked me out with her super unhinged crazy person vibe, but this isn’t just that, dad. She knows a lot about guns, she has access to ammunition and gunpowder through Chris. She came to Beacon Hills from the city just before Alice was killed. And when I saw her the other day she told me that the Argents were from a long line of hunters, that this old French story – the beast of Gévaudan – was true, and ye olde Argents were the ones to kill it. That hunting wolves is like, her birthright, and made some super weird comment about wolves not being extinct in the wild in California.”

Stiles tried to decide if he was going to mention that Allison had been super weird too. It wasn’t like his case against Kate was weak without it.

His dad didn’t give him the choice.

“And?” he prompted, like the super cop he was. 

“Don’t freak out, but I think Allison knows something. I maybe broke your ‘no telling anyone anything rule’, just a little, and asked Allison about making wolf’s bane bullets.”

His dad opened his mouth and Stiles knew the accusations of being thoughtless, reckless, and a general disappointment that were coming and he cut them off.

“She knew something and she was trying really hard to act like she didn’t.”

His dad’s face shifted from pissed to thoughtful. After a minute he looked at Stiles and said seriously, “You really think Allison would cover for her aunt if she knew she was killing people?”

Stiles knew what his gut thought, but his dad needed more than that, so he thought about it. Really thought about it.

“I know that she _hates_ Kate and this is Allison we’re talking about. Aside from Scott, she’s like, the nicest, most forgiving person in the history of the universe. But I think that Allison’s –,” Stiles sighed. “I think that Allison is like me. She’s lost her mom and she doesn’t have much family left and even though she hates Kate she hasn’t asked her dad to make her leave. Family is important to her and… Dad, if I thought that maybe you had done something, I wouldn’t – I _couldn’t_ risk losing you too unless there was real, hard evidence in front of me. Even then, I don’t know if I’d come forward.”

“Son-,” his dad said, voice thick.

“I know,” Stiles agreed, rubbing his hand over his eyes, suddenly damp. “I know this is murder and it’s serious and I think Allison is a better person than me. I think she knows, or suspects, something that could implicate Kate, but if she had real, hard evidence that it was Kate then she’d bring it to you. You’ve always trusted your gut,” he pleaded, “trust mine?”

“And your gut says Kate Argent?”

Stiles nodded. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” his dad said with a long, deep breath, before hauling himself up from the couch. “First thing tomorrow I’m going to look into her movements for the last couple of months and then I’m going to bring her in for questioning. If she says or does anything to you, I want to hear about it right away, okay?”

“Okay.”

His dad gave him the look. “Promise?”

“I promise,” he agreed, easily. Anything Kate did would be another strike against her in his dad’s book, like hell he was going to keep it quiet. 

“Okay,” his dad said, obviously thrown by Stiles’ easy, and honest, agreement. “Good, now tell me I heard the microwave earlier, I’m starving.”

“Duh.” Stiles rolled his eyes. “Like I’d let you starve. Go eat.”

His dad patted him on the arm and Stiles watched him head into the kitchen before jogging up the stairs and collapsing onto his bed. With the Sheriff watching her, if Kate Argent put even a foot out of line, she wasn’t going to get away with it. 

//

Stiles took his dad lunch at the station the next day, swinging by the diner to pick their blue plate special as a Friday treat, only he wasn’t in his office. Stiles left the take out bag on his desk and went out into the bullpen.

“Yo, Jordan,” Stiles said, leaning on the edge of Deputy Parrish’s desk. “My dad around?”

“He’s in interrogation,” he answered, nodding towards the back of the station where the two interview rooms were. “Conducting an interview.”

“Kate Argent?”

Jordan’s eyebrows went up. “Why would you say that?” his mouth said. His tone said _how did you know that_?

Stiles tipped an imaginary hat. “I have my sources.”

“You’ll get your _sources_ into trouble for telling you things you shouldn’t know yet,” Jordan said with an unimpressed look, leaning in close to keep his voice low.

“Hey, I tipped _him_ off!” Stiles huffed, pointing a finger at Jordan.

Jordan sat back in his seat and quirked an eyebrow at Stiles. “Is that so?”

“I have a very compelling case.”

Jordan threw his head back and laughed. “I’m sure you do, Stiles.”

“Just you wait until I graduate the police academy,” Stiles threatened.

“I’m shaking in my boots.” Jordan grinned.

“As you should be.” Stiles pushed himself off Jordan’s desk, ignoring the sarcasm in his tone. “Tell dad I stopped by?”

“Do I look like your secretary?”

“You’re hot enough,” Stiles said, giving Jordan a very deliberate up and down that made him squirm, “but I’m not sure about the outfit.”

He blew Jordan a kiss, just to be a jerk, and headed out.

//

Stiles was fucking around under the hood of the Jeep, which had refused to start, when Kate’s voice behind him made him jump so hard he cracked the back of his head on the popped hood.

“Visiting daddy, Bambi?”

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Stiles cursed, rubbing the back of his head as he ducked out from under the hood, shutting it behind him.  “Kate.”

“Want me to kiss it better?”

Stiles turned to face her and dropped his hand. “It’s fine,” he lied. “Who were you visiting?”

“Oh,” Kate smiled, faux-bashfully. “Just helping out with the investigation. Sharing a little wolf hunting expertise with the Sheriff, but you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Bambi?” Kate’s eyes went cold and hard, like you see in specials about serial killers.

It didn’t take a genius to know she’d figured out Stiles was behind her little chat with the county Sheriff. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to play innocent.

“Well,” he said, overly cheerful. “Who better to help catch a rampaging wild animal than a hunter, right?”

Kate opened her mouth, but what ever she was about to say was cut off by the rumble of an engine. Stiles followed Kate’s narrow-eyed gaze to where Derek’s porn car was pulling into the station lot.

“I’ll see you real soon, Bambi,” she said, blowing him a kiss before crossing the lot to her SUV, leaving Stiles with the serious need to bathe in bleach.

He pulled out his phone and texted his dad that Kate had possibly, maybe, threatened him a little. When he was done, Derek had gotten out of his car and was looking over at Stiles.

Stiles’ stomach did a back flip. He lifted his hand and gave Derek a little wave.

Derek nodded in return, face solemn, and didn’t come over. Stiles rubbed the back of his throbbing head again, and wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed.

//

Following Sheriff Dad’s orders, Stiles didn’t leave for Scott’s and the ritual Friday night pizza, games and movies until his dad got home.

“Thanks for bringing lunch today, kiddo,” his dad said, patting his shoulder as Stiles pulled a bottle of Mountain Dew from the fridge. “Kate give you any more trouble?”

Stiles shook his head. “No. I stayed home, like I promised.”

His dad gave a hmmmm of minimal belief. Stiles didn’t even bother trying to fight it. “I’m going to Scott’s now, if that’s cool?”

His dad gave a reluctant-looking nod. “Text me as soon as you get there. In the morning, I want you to text me when you’re leaving and if I’m not here, as soon as you get home.”

“Sure thing, daddy-o,” Stiles agreed, grabbing the Jeep keys and bolting before his dad could change his mind.

//

Both Scott and Mrs. McCall had Saturday off work, so Stiles spent the day lounging around in the McCall back yard with Scott and launching a ‘make all my favorite foods’ campaign on Mrs. McCall. It worked. By the time he drove home he had a food baby so big he looked at least a couple of months pregnant and had to pop the button on his fly.

“Dad,” he called, heading to the kitchen to put away the leftovers Mrs. McCall sent him home with.

“In here,” his dad called back, and when he was done, Stiles followed his voice into the dining room.

The table was still covered in case files and paperwork. “Tough day?”

His dad rubbed his hands over his face. “All of Kate’s alibis checked out.”

Stiles swallowed the noise of surprise that desperately tried to escape at his dad sharing case details with zero prompting. “All of them?”

His dad nodded. “Had Beacon City PD check into the ones up there, the report came in a couple of hours ago.”

“And here?”

“Said she’d left some stuff in Beacon City that she needed, drove back up to get it. Credit cards have her passing through the tolls, there and back, putting her out of town for both the kidnapping and the murder.”

Stiles looked at his dad. He _knew_ that face. “But?”

“It’s not just your gut she’s pinging kiddo. I’ve been going over her interview tape and the more I listen to it, the more my gut tells me it’s her.”

Stiles wasn’t sure if he should be pleased or not. His dad believed that it was Kate, was trying to prove it too, but there was less than a week until she was going to kill again and there was no evidence to arrest her.

“I’ve asked Beacon City PD to look harder into her alibis up there,” his dad said, reading Stiles’ mind, “and Jordan’s trying to get pictures from the traffic cams at the tolls, see if we can get a visual on the driver of Kate’s car, because I’m betting dollars to donuts it ain’t her.” He looked at Stiles, with that expression that managed to be dad and cop and reassurance and safety all at the same time. “We’re going to catch her, Stiles. She sat in that interview room smug as hell, sure she was going to get away with it, and smug people make mistakes. But until then, I want you to be extra careful, okay? I don’t think she’s going to break her pattern, given her crazy wolf obsession, but she threatened you, and I don’t want to give her any opportunity to hurt you. I’ll be giving JJ the same talk, just in case.”

//

Stiles didn’t sleep that night; brain too full of Kate and her creepy death smile to switch off. He dozed off around dawn, slipping in and out of sleep for a couple of hours before giving up and dragging his ass out of bed. His face in the mirror was tired and his hair was in desperate need of another buzz.

“Time to hit the store,” he told his reflection, before jumping in the shower.

He drove out to the Target just outside of town; he knew they stocked cheap clippers, because it was where he got his last pair.

He wasn’t expecting to find Derek in the electronic grooming products aisle comparing hairdryers.

Stiles’ heart did something complicated in his chest. Other than seeing him in the parking lot of the Sheriff’s station, it had been almost a week since Stiles had seen Derek, or actually spoken to him. Aside from the fact that Derek’s stubble had somehow managed to reach new and so far unattained heights of attractiveness, Stiles realized that he’d missed him.

Missed his face, and his shy smiles, and the way the tops of his ears turned pink, and that he genuinely seemed to like Stiles. Yeah, he missed Derek like crazy.

“Hey, Derek,” Stiles said, edging closer to where Derek was holding up two hairdryers and frowning at their boxes.

“Stiles,” Derek replied, a smile lighting up his face for barely a second before it was gone.

Stiles waited for something, _anything_ , else. It never came.

“Can’t say I ever imagined I’d find you hairdryer shopping in Target.”

“It’s for the guest room,” Derek said, barely lifting his eyes from his intense study of the boxes to look at Stiles. It was the most withdrawn he’d ever seen him and it was really freaking Stiles out. “Laura’s sworn she won’t come visit unless it’s like staying at a hotel, four stars minimum.”

Stiles tapped the box on the left. “Then you should definitely spring for the triple-speed and cool air button kind.”

“Thanks,” Derek said softly, finally looking up and pausing on the hair clippers in Stiles’ hand. “You buzz your own hair?” he asked, then looked surprised, like he hadn’t meant the words to come out.

“Yeah,” he said, leaping on the opportunity, because it was the closest to the Derek Stiles knew and loved that he’d gotten since he spotted him. “It’s not like running a pair of clippers over my head takes enough skill for me to pay someone to do it. Just need a new set, my old ones broke and it’s getting a little out of control,” he explained, waving at his head.

Derek raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “You call that out of control?”

Stiles shrugged. “Okay, maybe not by normal people’s standards, but out of control for me. If I have to do anything other than run some soap over it, it’s too much work.”

“Is that why you buzz it? Because I’ve got to tell you, it makes you look like a high school student.”

Stiles snorted, relief flooding him as Derek finally sounded more like himself. “Maybe that’s because I _am_ a high school student. Or, I was, until I graduated last month.”

Derek’s face creased up into one of his adorable confused frowns. “What? Aren’t you and JJ nineteen?”

“We are.” Stiles resisted the urge to say _duh_ , because it wasn’t like he should really expect Derek to remember everything he ever said just because he hoarded information on Derek like Smaug with gold. “I repeated first grade, remember? So I got to graduate a year later, and was living the hell that is senior year of high school while JJ was off having his adventures in South America.”

Derek didn’t look any less confused as he looked between the clippers in the basket and Stiles. “So you buzzed your hair to fit in?”

“No,” Stiles snapped, the bottom dropping straight out of his tentatively hopeful good mood. “What, is this sharing hour or something?”

“No.” Derek visibly flinched, turning into the downtrodden caricature of Derek Hale he’d originally found hairdryer shopping. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I know you’re not interested-,” he swallowed. “I know we’re not friends,” he finished stepping back, everything about him from his voice, to the slope of his shoulders defeated.

 _Oh god_ Stiles was a jerk.

He was the reason Derek was being weird and withdrawn. Derek wanted them to be friends and Stiles had been a total douchebag outside of Nerd Heaven, shutting down his offer of kitten snuggles and breakfast, and what had it been for?

Nothing, because he’d missed Derek. Sure, he’d probably always want more with Derek, and being friends would probably only lead to more pain and heartbreak but he didn’t care. Not if it meant he got Derek’s time and smiles and laughter and care. He’d tried going without it, and seeing Derek showed him how much it sucked. He couldn’t do it again.

“Derek, wait,” he said reaching out, catching Derek by the wrist before he could leave. “I’m a – that was a really douchey thing to say and you didn’t deserve it, I’m sorry. It’s just, it’s kind of a sensitive subject.”

Derek looked up him from under his ridiculously gorgeous eyelashes, a mixture of hopeful and scared. Stiles took a deep breath.

“We are friends,” he said. “If you want to be friends with a total jerk like me, we’re totally friends. I want us to be friends.”

“I’d like that.” Derek nodded, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Friends. And I promise I won’t ask about your hair.”

Stiles chest tightened at Derek’s tone. Not even a hint of laughter, like most people would. Instead of making a crack about Stiles taking his hair too seriously, Derek really was taking it seriously, whatever it was that had made Stiles turn into a temporary bag of dicks. “No, it’s okay. I want to tell you, just not here. Come over to my place?”

“Only if you’re sure.”

Stiles put his basket on the floor before he could chicken out. “I’m sure.”

//

Derek followed Stiles back home in the Camaro, accepting the glass of juice he was offered and waiting for Stiles to explain with his usual calm, quiet, patience.

Stiles led him to sideboard in the dining room and handed him the framed picture of him, JJ and mom. Mom had always insisted on separate birthday parties for the boys, because they’d technically been born on different days – JJ at 23:51 and Stiles at 00:14 – and were in different grades. She’d also insisted on having a family day out the day after Stiles’ birthday, as it was always during school vacation. The picture was from their last real birthday family day – their ninth – as mom was too sick and dad too messed up with stress and grief to do much of anything when they turned ten.

“That’s our mom,” Stiles explained, though he probably didn’t need to because the Stilinski twins had always looked way more like their mom than their dad. “That’s me,” he said, pointing himself out on mom’s left, because Derek wouldn’t be able to tell. Not from a decade old film photograph from before, when JJ and he really were identical, haircuts and clothes included. The only reason Stiles even knew which of the two of them was him was because he always stood on their mom’s left.

“You look so much like her,” Derek said, running his finger over the glass that covered Stiles’ mom’s beaming face.

“She died when JJ and I were eleven,” Stiles said and it still hurt like it was last week to say it, to put into words the fact that she was gone and never coming back.

“I remember.” Derek said sadly, handing the photo back to Stiles. “I’m sorry.”

Stiles shrugged. “It’s okay. I mean, it’s not and it never will be, but I’m dealing with it and I guess that’s as okay as anyone can be.”

He put the photo back on the side, next to the one of her in the hospital, his dad sitting on the bed beside her, the pair of them beaming down in pride at JJ and him cradled against her chest, one of each in her arms. 

“She had this rare form of dementia that strikes really young. It wasn’t – It was pretty crappy, for everyone. It started as little things, forgetting where she put her keys, or what she went out to get from the store, how to work the TV, stuff like that. Then it got aggressive and it was big things, like that her brother died in a car crash when she was twenty, how to dress herself, people’s names. She tried really hard with me and JJ, but having two identical kids and trying to tell them apart when you can barely remember your own name isn’t good for anyone. Dad suggested the easiest way to make us different was to cut the hair on one of us. We decided it’d be me.”

Stiles wasn’t so much of a jerk to tell Derek the truth, that their mom was getting upset and frustrated all the time she was partially lucid for not being able to tell her boys apart. That JJ had outright refused for it to be him; he was too popular and cool to get a dorky haircut, so Stiles had done it because he hated seeing mom cry, because Scott wouldn’t care – he hadn’t – and what was another thing in the list of stuff he got teased about at school anyway?

“Dad buzzed my hair. It helped mom and I stopped getting mistaken for JJ all the time.”

Stopped seeing the looks of disappointment on people’s faces when they realized it was the wrong twin; that they weren’t talking to the cool and popular one.

“Made life easier for dad, he was never as good at telling us apart as mom was. So, I kept it up. Maybe I’ll finally grow it out next year when I go to Irvine.”

“You’d look good with longer hair,” Derek said, turning to consider Stiles. “Not like JJ’s,” he continued before Stiles could point out that just because he looked like JJ it didn’t mean he could pull off his ridiculous top knot. “Normal guy length.” He smirked, “Spike it up at the front a little.”

Stiles laughed to break the tension. “Do you have shares in L’Oreal or something?”

“Or something.” Derek flashed him a grin, all white and adorable bunny teeth.

Stiles’ heart fluttered. Derek looked down at his watch. “I have to go, but thank you. For telling me.”

“You should come over again,” Stiles said when he’d shown Derek to the door and Derek was halfway out. “We can hang out and not talk about depressing stuff. You can tell me how to make my hair defy gravity when I grow it out.”

“I’d like that,” Derek chuckled, stepping back out onto the porch. “Could you do something for me?”

“Sure, anything.”

“When you see JJ,” Derek said and Stiles’ heart sank. Of course. “Can you tell him I really need to see him? He’s been dodging my calls and it’s important.”

Stiles plastered on a smile and pointedly didn’t ask why Derek wanted to see JJ. “Sure.”

Derek offered Stiles a small grateful smile before jogging down the porch steps. “Thanks! See you around, Stiles.”

Stiles shut the door and settled in for a long wait.

//

JJ didn’t roll in until just before dinner time that evening. Stiles, who had been trying to get a hold of JJ to pass on his stupid message since Derek had left early afternoon, had steadily been working himself into a state of seriously pissed off.

“What are you doing in here, SS?” JJ asked, not even bothering to lock the front door behind him. “Dad’ll be home soon, shouldn’t you be in the kitchen or something?”

Stiles leapt off the couch. He hadn’t even thought about dinner. “I’m waiting for you, asshole,” he said, shoving past JJ to flick the lock and the deadbolt, because the closer to the full moon they got, the more cautious their dad was getting.

Then it hit him. The smell.

JJ fucking reeked of Lydia’s perfume and sex.

Stiles rounded on him, pissed off cranking up to righteous fury. “What the _fuck_? Lydia?”

JJ’s smug _I just got laid_ smile just got bigger, and smugger and how the fuck had Stiles missed it?

JJ shrugged. “What can I say, little bro. Me and Lydia have a complex relationship. She finally decided she was happy that I’m back in town and like I’m going turn down a hot chick who is a great lay and wants to fuck?”

“What about Derek?” Stiles ground out.

JJ rolled his eyes. “What about Derek?”

“You really think he’s not going to care that you’re fucking around on him?”

“Okay, SS, I don’t know where you got the idea that Derek and I were, like, going steady or something, but he’s not my girlfriend, I can fuck who I like.”

JJ said it with such casual indifference, like fidelity and other people’s feelings meant nothing when he had another willing hole to stick his dick in, pushed Stiles’ fury so high he thought he might actually stroke out.

He took a long, deep breath. Getting angrier wouldn’t help, it’d just make JJ even more of a dick. So he asked, calmly, “Then why is he so desperate to see you that I’ve got to wait for you to roll home just so I can tell you to call him?”

“For fucks sake, Stiles, do I really have to spell it out for you,” JJ said, throwing his hands in the air like _Stiles_ was the one with an attitude problem. “Derek is just a casual fuck and sure, he gives pretty good head, but Lydia is better. It’s not my problem if he’s got hurt feelings.”

“What?”

“I know you’re a virgin and everything, but I know you get what casual sex is. Derek’s a great fuck, but I’m done with him now. The end.”

Stiles saw red.

“Are you seriously telling me that you’ve been using Derek for sex, since the start? That you ruined my chances with a guy I really, _really_ fucking like for cheap orgasms until something better came along.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” JJ sighed, giving Stiles a pitying look before pushing past him and into the den. “Are you still going on about how you were hot for Derek?”

Stiles followed him. “Yeah, I am.”

“Why?” JJ asked, bored. “I thought we’d been over this. If he wanted me then he wouldn’t have been interested in you. You’re not his type, not like I am.”

“That logic literally makes no sense, JJ. We’re _identical_! And you don’t know that he wouldn’t have been interested in me. We’re _friends_ , he likes me. As a person who is _not you_. He could’ve wanted to be with me.”

“God, I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about this. So what if we fucked for a while and now I’m over him? It’s great you guys are friends, but you need to stop turning this into something it’s not just so you can be mad at me or something. He wouldn’t have agreed to go out with you. Guys like Derek Hale aren’t interested in nerdy virgin spazzes as anything more than _just_ _friends_. You should be thanking me for giving him a reason to talk to you in the first place.”

Stiles was moving before he could stop himself, nineteen years of control whiting out in red-hot rage.

His fist connected with JJ’s face with a crack, sending him sprawling on his ass.

“You punched me?” JJ shrieked, clutching at his gushing nose as he scrabbled to sit up. “Why did you punch me? I can’t believe you punched me. Me, your _brother_!”

“Brother?” Stiles sneered, shaking his hand out. His knuckles throbbed and wrist ached but it was worth it, so fucking worth it; he’d do it again in an instant. Actually, he really wanted to do it again anyway. He lunged at JJ, shoving him back to the floor with a heavy thump. “You’re not my brother, you’re just a jackass that looks the same as me. Scott’s my _real_ brother.”

JJ roared, flipping Stiles on his back with enough force to crack his skull against the hardwood floor before he elbowed Stiles in the face. Pain stabbed across his cheek like lightning. “Fuck you and fuck your fuckwit _fake_ _brother_.”

“Even if he was a fake and a fuckwit he’d still be better than you,” Stiles screamed, kneeing JJ in the stomach.

JJ groaned; arm wrapped around his middle as he doubled over. Stiles took the opportunity to shove JJ off him, kicking him in the kidneys as he scrabbled away. It only took a minute for JJ to catch his breath again, launching himself across the room at Stiles.

Stiles rolled out the way, grinning at the smack of JJ hitting the floor, before doubling back to climb on top of him and hit him. He pulled his arm back again, clenched his fist tighter – he wanted to see JJ try and hook up with anyone with a broken jaw, when a hand closed around his wrist.

“Stiles!” His dad bellowed, “What the hell do you think you’re doing!”

Stiles turned and froze. His dad’s face was bright red, his eyes blazing.

“Dad,” JJ sobbed, blood still gushing from his nose, “He just attacked me out of nowhere!”

“Out of nowhere,” Stiles hissed, lunging for JJ. He might not be able to hit him with his hand, but a head butt would be worth the pain. “I’ll give you out of fucking nowhere.”

Only Stiles’ head never connected, an arm clamped around his waist like iron and hauled him back. He knew it was his dad but he didn’t care, he kicked and screamed and fought to wipe that smug glint out of JJ’s eyes as he lay there playing the victim.

“WOJCIECH STILINSKI if you don’t stop I will handcuff you,” his dad shouted in his most authoritative parent / Sheriff combo voice. Even though Stiles was the only one who’d ever been on the receiving end of it, even JJ shrunk back into the floor a little.

Stiles went limp against his dad, head and cheek pounding in time with his racing pulse, hand aching.

“If I let you go are you going to behave?” His dad asked, dragging Stiles further away from JJ. “Or do I need to cuff you while I check on your brother?”

Stiles nodded, carefully. “I’m done.”

“You bet your ass you’re done,” he growled, pushing Stiles down on to the couch. “You stay there and don’t even think about moving.”

Stiles touched the back of his head, hissing when he realized what a big fucking mistake that was. His hand came away red and tacky and his stomached rolled at the sight. His dad was busy fussing over JJ’s nose and left eye, which was already starting to swell. Stiles closed his eyes.

“I’m getting you both ice packs,” his dad said. “If I come back and either one of you has so much as moved an inch, you’re both spending the night in holding cells.”

“Daaaaad,” JJ whined. Stiles covered his ears until an ice pack wrapped in a dishtowel landed in his lap. He pressed it to the back of his head instead of his face.

JJ sat up on the floor and was turning a dishtowel red with his nose and holding an ice pack of his own to his eye. His dad stood between them, hands on hips and frown so deep it looked like it’d been carved into his face. Stiles might not have felt even a little guilty about kicking the crap out of JJ, but he did for putting that look back on his dad’s face.

“Now, which one of you is going to tell me what the hell happened here?”

“Stiles hit me!” JJ said, pointing at Stiles with his bloody dishtowel like there was another Stiles in the room.

He turned to look at JJ, waving at Stiles’ face. “And he just elbowed himself in the face, did he?”

“I was defending myself.”

Their dad turned to Stiles. “You don’t have anything to say for yourself?”

Stiles shrugged. “JJ was being jerk.”

Their dad rubbed a hand over his face, shoulders heavy with disappointment. “And you think that’s reason to hit your brother?”

JJ snorted, though it came out as a wet gurgle. “According to Stiles, I’m not his _real_ brother.”

Their dad’s eyebrows went up. “What?”

“He’s always choosing his precious fucking Scott over me,” JJ spat. “His brother. His _twin_.”

Stiles blinked, then after a long moment, laughed.

“Stiles,” his dad warned and it just made Stiles laugh harder, tears forming in the corners of his eyes.

“Fuck you, JJ,” Stiles gasped, hysterics turning hot and angry in the bottom of his stomach. “Acting like you’ve actually ever given a crap about being my brother, my twin, since before I met Scott.”

“Stiles –“ his dad tried, but there was no stopping Stiles.

Derek Hale was the last thing JJ was ever going to use against Stiles. JJ sitting there and telling their dad that Stiles had abandoned him for Scott was the final fucking straw.

“Mom always used to tell me you didn’t mean it, that you didn’t mean to forget about me but she was wrong,” he told JJ, looking him in his wide, shocked eyes. “She was wrong about me forgiving you because you were my brother, about me letting every mean and shitty thing you did go, because one day we’d grow up and I’d be glad to have you. She was so fucking wrong because a _real_ brother wouldn’t come home from South America and fuck the guy his ‘little’ brother has spent half a year building up the confidence to ask out. A _real_ brother wouldn’t dress up as their brother when they’re going out to get in trouble and think they’re going to get caught. A _real_ brother wouldn’t date the girl their brother has a crush on _and_ go to Heather’s sixteenth birthday party and talk her out of the twin she _chose_ because he’s a ‘loser virgin.’ A _real_ brother wouldn’t move up to second grade and pretend their twin doesn’t exist because he’s the ‘Stupid Stilinski.’ A _real_ brother wouldn’t start calling me ‘SS’ so he could get away with calling me dumb in front of mom and dad. A _real_ brother wouldn’t have taken or ruined every fucking good thing I ever had because I was unlucky enough to be born second _and **defective**_. You say I’m always choosing Scott? Yeah, I do and I did and you know what? I would again every single fucking time, because you’ve never wanted your stupid, twitchy, spazzy brother and you just hate that I found Scott instead of following you around thinking the sun shines out your ass.”

Stiles’ looked at their dad and realized his face was wet. He scrubbed at it, expecting his shirt cuff to come away stained with red but it didn’t. He was crying.

“You want to know why I hit JJ? Well,” he said to his dad, pulling himself up off the couch. “Take your fucking pick.”

“Stiles,” his dad called, but he didn’t stop. “Stiles -- wait.”

He grabbed the keys to the Jeep from the hook and slammed the front door behind him.

//

Stiles went to the McCall house even though he figured that Mrs. McCall would be at work with all the double shifts she’d been pulling lately and knew that Scott would still be at Dr. Deaton’s helping out with the once-monthly Sunday post-closing inventory. He knew he should probably go see Mrs. McCall at the hospital to get his head and his face checked but the last thing he wanted was to be around anyone other than the McCalls or in a public place that his dad could both find him in and get access to.

“Scott or Stiles?” Mrs. McCall shouted from somewhere inside the house, making him jump. 

“Stiles!” he called back, “Hi Mrs. McCall.”

Stiles winced at his own volume, the inside of his skull throbbing, and headed to the kitchen to grab another ice pack.

“You know Scott is at work,” Mrs. McCall said from somewhere behind Stiles as he hunted through the freezer.

“Yeah,” Stiles sighed, resting his forehead against a pack of frozen peas before facing Mrs. McCall. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Oh my god,” Mrs. McCall breathed, dropping the basket of laundry under her arm and running around the kitchen island to him. “Stiles, what the hell happened to you?”

Stiles looked at the floor. “I got in a fight with JJ.”

“JJ did this?” She lifted his chin with a gentle finger, turning his face left and then right, inspecting the damage.

Stiles nodded, waiting until she’d full-body turned him to look at the back of his head before confessing, “I maybe threw the first punch.”

“Wow.” 

Stiles knew that while Mrs. McCall didn’t believe in violence solving any problems she’d spent more afternoons after school, late nights and weekends, helping Scott pick up the pieces after JJ to not react like his dad had. That didn’t mean he wanted to look her in the eye after admitting he’d finally lost the temper she’d spent the last ten years helping him keep. He didn’t want to see the disappointment.

“You mad at me?”

“No,” Mrs. McCall said without hesitation. She turned Stiles around, holding his shoulders and ducking her head to meet his eyes. “I’m just surprised. I thought if you didn’t do it when you were sixteen then nothing would push you over the edge.”

She pulled him into a hug and Stiles couldn’t help but bury himself in it. She smelled like Scott and home and _mom_. “It’s funny you say that,” he said into her shoulder. 

Stiles had gone back to Scott’s after Heather’s birthday party, hanging off Scott’s shoulder drunk and angry and loud. The next morning Mrs. McCall sat with him with his head pounding and the taste of vomit still in his mouth, and asked him to explain himself and he had. He told her how Heather had invited him to her party because she’d missed him, because she wanted them to hook up, maybe start dating. JJ had only been invited as a courtesy and even though he was dating Lydia Martin, Stiles’ first high school crush, he’d convinced Heather she’d picked the wrong twin because Stiles was just a Star Wars-loving virgin. JJ knew what he was doing, he’d said, he would be so much better than his little brother.

Mrs. McCall called JJ a selfish little shit, put Stiles back to bed with a glass of water and an aspirin and never once told his dad that Stiles had drunk himself stupid.

“A girl?” she asked, sitting Stiles down at the kitchen island and pulling the first aid kit out from under the sink.

“A guy.” 

Mrs. McCall nodded, flashing her pen light in his eyes. “Special guy?”

Stiles shrugged, probably missing nonchalance by a mile and followed the light with each eye. He knew the drill for possible concussion. “Derek Hale.”

Mrs. McCall whistled and clicked the light off. “Hot guy.”

“Nice guy,” Stiles corrected, before he could stop himself. Not that his liking Derek Hale was a massive secret; he’d punched JJ in the face over him, after all.

“Yeah, he is,” Mrs. McCall agreed, pulling on some gloves. Of course she knew he was a good guy, she was the one that had told him that Derek volunteered at the hospital. “I didn’t know you knew each other that well.”

“We’re friends. Not that it really matters, not like that anyway. _Ow_ ,” Stiles hissed as she poked the cheekbone JJ had elbowed. “JJ got there first.”

“Hey kiddo,” she said, grabbing his chin and forcing him to look her in the face. “If Derek can’t see that you’re worth ten JJs then he’s not as smart as I thought he was and he’s definitely not worth your time, okay?”

Stiles nodded, though he didn’t believe it, and let her turn him around and clean up the back of his head, wrapping him up like a mummy to keep a bit of gauze in place.

“I’m guessing you don’t want to go to the hospital right now,” Mrs. McCall said, turning him back to face her to tie off the bandage. 

“You’d be guessing correctly.”

“Okay,” she agreed, pulling off her gloves. “But only because you don’t have a concussion and the bleeding from the back of your head has almost stopped, _and_ on one condition.”

“Which is?”

“You come in with me tomorrow morning if I think you need it.”

“Deal.”

“Good,” she said, handing him the ice pack he’d taken from her freezer. “Now keep this on your face, try and bring the swelling down.”

Stiles did as he was told, and accepted the bottle of water she got him from the fridge. “Drink this, but no painkillers.” Stiles groaned. “Sorry, kiddo, I’ve only got aspirin and you don’t want your blood thinning when you’ve got a bleeding head wound.”

“I’ll be fine,” Stiles promised. “I’m just going to go crash in Scott’s room, if that’s okay?”

Mrs. McCall nodded, catching him by the elbow before he could slip past. “Does your dad know about all this?”

“Yeah,” he said, pulling the ice pack off his face. “He broke it up before assault turned into attempted murder.”

“Does he know that you’re here?”

“I guess.” Stiles shrugged. “He’s not an idiot and it’s not like I have anywhere else to go.”

For just a second it looked like Mrs. McCall’s heart was breaking. “Just to be clear, you don’t want to see him?”

Stiles looked at his dirty sneakers and shook his head. “Not really.”

“Okay,” she said, patting him softly on his uninjured cheek. “If he comes by I won’t let him in. Do you really think he’s going to take JJ’s side?”

“Maybe? I don’t know. I kinda let everything loose, but JJ’s always been his favorite.”

Mrs. McCall didn’t bullshit him with fake assurances that their dad loved them both the same, that parents didn’t have favorites. Just like Stiles had been their mom’s favorite, JJ was dad’s – good at sports, popular, seemingly never getting in trouble in or out of school, always dating pretty girls and hot guys – the kid he actually understood, the one that didn’t remind him of the dead love of his life. Instead, she pulled him into another hug.

“When you’re ready to go home, tell him how you feel. Your dad’s a good man, give him a chance to listen, okay?”

Stiles nodded and she kissed the side of his head. “Good boy. Go lie down for a little bit, I’ll let Scott know you’re here and I’m making tamales for dinner.”

“Thanks, Mrs. McCall,” he whispered into her hair. “You’re the best.”

“You’re welcome, kiddo,” she said, letting him go. “Now go lie down before you fall down.”

“Yes ma’am,” Stiles agreed with a sloppy salute, and then made his way slowly up the stairs to what was pretty much his second bedroom.

//

Mrs. McCall had obviously prepped Scott, because when he stomped into his own room an hour later it was with clenched fists and a red face.

“If you want to murder JJ, I’ll help you bury the body,” he declared. “And be your alibi. Mom too, she’s really pissed off at JJ, and your dad.”

Stiles wasn’t exactly surprised by this news. He’d known Scott had his back always and forever ever since the second grade when Scott tried to take the fall for a vase JJ had broken and was going to successfully blame on Stiles. That Mrs. McCall would help him dispose of JJ after theoretically allowing him to beat his brother to death wasn’t that much of a shock either. Stiles had seen the look in her eye when he told her what happened, had seen the quiet fury build over the years as she physically patched him up and watched Scott pick up the emotional pieces JJ left behind after each subtle, but devastating blow. Pieces that his dad had either never seen, or hadn’t wanted to.

Stiles pulled Scott’s comforter over his throbbing head and buried his aching face deeper into Scott’s pillow. “Can we not talk about this?”

Stiles felt the bed dip under Scott’s weight as he sat down next to Stiles, petting the comforter in the rough area of Stiles’ shoulder. “If you’re sure you don’t want to.”

Stiles nodded, large and exaggerated so Scott could see, even though it made his head pound even harder. “I’m really sure.”

And he was. It had been over an hour since he got to the McCall house and Stiles didn’t feel angry anymore, just stupid and fragile and a little broken. His dad had walked in on Stiles doing one of the two things he’d always made clear he would refuse to tolerate in his kids, trying to solve problems with violence. The only way it could have been any worse was if Stiles had been high while he was smacking JJ in the face, then it would have been a double-whammy for dad shame.

It didn’t matter why he’d done it; that it was a miracle that he hadn’t snapped and done it sooner. His dad wasn’t going to forgive him. He sure as hell wasn’t going to believe Stiles’ reasons, or the things he said before he stormed out. They’d all just seem like petty accusations to try and justify using his fists instead of his words.

If JJ decided to press charges Stiles would never get into the police academy. His dad was a witness and he’d never perjure himself, not in a battle of he said / he said between him and JJ, not when there was so much obvious evidence of what Stiles did. An assault charge on his record would end the only career he’d ever seriously wanted (other than Space Cowboy) before it had even started. Not to mention kissing his scholarship to Irvine goodbye.

His entire future gone in an instant, just because he’d lost control of his temper. It was stupid and dumb and so, so stupid and there was no one to blame other than himself.

Scott shuffled next to him before slipping under the comforter with him, stripped down to his underwear and a t-shirt. “I’m here if you change your mind,” he said into Stiles’ neck, wrapping himself around Stiles in a tight hug.

Somewhere, in the depths of the Stilinski attic there were pictures of Stiles and JJ like this, back when they were toddlers, curled together in the crib they shared, dressed by mom in identical footie pajamas. It was probably the last time they were so close, physically or emotionally, back before they could talk.

And people wondered why he called Scott his brother.

Stiles nuzzled into Scott, let himself be comforted by the feeling of family and safety and forgiveness. “I know bro, I know.”

//

Stiles was shaken carefully awake the next morning by Mrs. McCall, her hand warm and gentle on his shoulder. Stiles blinked up at her, Scott snoring and drooling into the pillow next to him. The blinds were still open and the morning light was bright and painful in his eyes.

“Huh?” he said, intelligently and setting off a fresh and intense wave of pain from his eye all the way through to the back of his skull.

“Sorry,” she said softly, stroking her hand over his hair, avoiding the tender, throbbing head wound at the back. She was dressed in her scrubs, hair pulled back and face lined with concern.

“Time for work already?”

“Yup.” Mrs. McCall nodded and Stiles struggled to extract himself from Scott the octopus and get himself into an almost upright position.

“Tell me I don’t have to come with you?” he begged hopefully, turning around so that she could inspect the back of his head.

“We’ll see,” she said, noncommittally.

Stiles sat as still as was physically possible for him while she unwound the bandage from around his head and listened as she snapped on a pair of gloves before peeling the dressing off. Careful fingers moved around and over the still tender area, the occasional press sending sharp, hot waves of pain through the back of his head.

“Sorry,” she said again, as he flinched and swallowed a hiss of discomfort.

He didn’t say anything. The last thing he deserved was sympathy. He’d brought this on himself, after all.

“I’m just going to put another dressing on, in case you want to get some more sleep,” she said, wrapping him back up again like a mummy. “You can take it off when you get up, leave it exposed to the air but don’t get it wet for another twenty-four hours, give it some more time to heal and you’ll be fine.”

“I can do that,” Stiles agreed, turning back around to look at her and making sure his eyes didn’t drop to the bloody bandage she was putting in a bag for the trash. “Does this mean I don’t have to go to the hospital?”

She studied his face for a moment. “Let me check your pupils.”

Stiles submitted to having the penlight waved in his face without complaint, but the lines between her eyes didn’t ease when she was done and Stiles’ sense of impending doom started to tingle, and not in a good way. “Mrs. McCall?”

She smiled and it was so obviously fake and strained, that Stiles was about to thump Scott awake when she put her hand over his and promised, “You’re fine.”

“Then why do you look like I’m bleeding into my brain?”

Her frown deepened, the lines around her mouth becoming more defined. “Your dad’s downstairs.”

Stiles’ heart climbed into his throat. “To arrest me?”

“What?”

“For assaulting JJ?” he whispered, eyes focused on his fingers as they played with the edge of the comforter.

“No, Stiles. _No_ ,” she said, ducking her head to catch his eye. “He just wants to talk to you, about what happened last night and what you said.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I’d have to ask you if you wanted to see him first.”

Stiles thought about it, about the disappointed way his dad had looked at him, how tightly he’d held Stiles to protect JJ from him, even after he’d stopped struggling. The way he had so much more in common with JJ than a future profession, the way he had never seen – never wanted to see – the divide between his sons, the way JJ treated Stiles.

Stiles shook his head. “I don’t want to see him.”

Mrs. McCall nodded, her lips pressed together in a grim line but her eyes were warm with understanding, comfort. “Okay.” She squeezed his hand. “I’ll tell him you’re not ready yet.”

It was a given that he would talk to his dad about what happened, that he would have to. He couldn’t hide at the McCall’s forever, as much as he wanted to, but he could for a little while at least. For enough time to lick his wounds surrounded by the sympathy, the understanding and the love of the McCalls, his brother and his second mom, before he had to face his fate. Whatever it would be.

Mrs. McCall stood, pressing a kiss to his forehead on the opposite side to his black eye as she went. “Call me at work if you need anything.”

Stiles nodded and watched her go. He lasted less than a minute before he was out of bed, tiptoeing along the hall to hide at the top of the stairs.

“Melissa, please,” his dad said from downstairs by the door. “I just want to talk to him.”

Stiles dropped down silently on to the top step, resting his forehead on his knees.

“And I said that he doesn’t want to see you right now. You just need to give him some time.”

Stiles’ heart filled with even more love for Mrs. McCall, for the firm no-nonsense tone that said nothing his dad did or said would get him past her, not until Stiles was ready to face the music.

“For God’s sake, he broke JJ’s nose,” his dad snapped.

Stiles’ stomach lurched. Last night, in the moment when he’d seen the blood gushing from JJ’s nose this was what he had wanted, had hoped he’d managed to achieve. In the cold light of the morning he just felt sick and ashamed.

“And?” Mrs McCall asked and Stiles could just see her in his mind’s eye, the stubborn tilt of her jaw Scott mirrored perfectly, her hands on her hips just daring his dad to challenge her.

“And I want him to damn well explain himself!” His dad shouted and Stiles could her the unrestrained fury, the way his voice shook with it.

“Well we don’t always get what we want,” Mrs. McCall said so sharp and so dry Stiles had to smother a hysterical giggle into his knees.

“I’ve had enough of this,” his dad growled. “He’s my son and you’re not going to stop me from speaking to him.”

“Like hell I’m not!” Mrs. McCall snarled and Stiles jumped as Scott dropped down onto the stair next to him, eyebrows drawn together into a question mark.

Stiles pressed a finger to his lips.

“Stiles is just as much my son as he is yours,” Mrs. McCall said, her voice shaking and hot with fury.

“Now you listen-” his dad started, but Mrs. McCall cut him off.

“No. You listen. I’ve watched Stiles live his entire life in JJ’s shadow, trying to be his own person instead of just _the twin that’s not JJ_. I watched him spend every night after school at the hospital after Claudia died, trying to stop other people from being lonely in that place and then had to sit him at the nurses station, alone, when you were too busy watching one of JJ’s games or meets to come get him. I watched JJ beat him down, slowly and methodically until he honestly believed that he’s the lesser of them. I’ve patched up every physical wound he’s had since he was eleven and watched Scott try to pick up every little piece JJ broke him into. I have stood by him and believed in him and seen him for the amazing, caring young man he’s become despite the fact that he’s had to fight against JJ crapping on him for his entire life. And the only thing I regret is that I didn’t do this sooner. That I stood by and let you favor JJ, let you ignore every shitty, and petty, and hurtful thing he did to Stiles because it didn’t feel like my place to intervene with your boys, but he’s not. He’s not just your boy, he’s mine too. You and JJ might be his blood, but sometimes we get stuck with shitty blood, so we make our own families. Better ones. Families of _choice_. Stiles chose Scott and I and we chose him right back and I am _so proud_ of him for standing up to JJ. The only person I’m disappointed in here is you for not believing in him the way you should.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then why, when I told Stiles you were here to see him, his first thought was that you were going to arrest him for assaulting JJ?”

His dad didn’t have an answer.

“Exactly,” Mrs. McCall said. “Now, are you going to get out and leave my boys the hell alone or do I need to call 911?”

His dad didn’t answer with anything but the slamming of the door, and a moment later, the thundering of a patrol car engine.

“I love your mom,” Stiles whispered, leaning into Scott and burrowing under his arm.

 “She’s awesome.” Scott nodded. “I called Deaton, told him I had a family emergency.”

“You’re pretty awesome too, dude,” Stiles pointed out, butting Scott in the shoulder.

“Obviously,” Scott snorted. Downstairs the front door slammed. “More sleep?”

Stiles felt exhausted, like his body was made of lead, but also that he’d never be able to sleep again through all the noise in his head. He nodded anyway and let Scott lead him back to bed and burrito him up in the comforter.

Scott patted his head carefully. He said something, but Stiles was already being pulled back under.

//

Stiles spent the next couple of days alternating between sleeping in Scott’s bed and on the couch, head fuzzy and limbs feeling like lead. Scott passed to and from work, so did Mrs. McCall, brushing her hand over his hair, kissing his forehead and not commenting on the fact he hadn’t showered in three days.

“Thank you,” he said, curling into her as she sat down next to him on the couch, and burying his face in the cool clean cotton of her scrubs.

She rubbed slow, warm circles over his back, like she’d done when he was twelve and had the flu. “I meant it, you know,” she said softly. “You and Scott, you’re my boys and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for the pair of you.”

Stiles nodded against her stomach, feeling safe and warm and loved. Like family. “I think maybe I’ll get up tomorrow.”

“Good,” she said, squeezing him tightly. “We’ve missed you.”

//

Stiles wasn’t exactly surprised when he looked at his phone to find three new text messages, all from his dad, who hadn’t been to the house again since the morning Mrs. McCall told him where to go.

Stiles wasn’t so out of it that he had missed Mrs. McCall getting home late that morning from her night shift. Or the way that the tension in her shoulders had suddenly dropped out and the way she’d stopped looking out the window every time she passed one that looked out onto the street.

It didn’t exactly take a genius to work out that she’d spoken to his dad. And that maybe he’d finally calmed down.

Stiles took a deep breath and opened the messages.

_Stiles. I know that you’re upset and that I’ve reacted poorly. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you soon enough the night you fought with JJ and I’m sorry that I’ve made you feel you couldn’t come to me about your brother. I want you to know that I’m not angry with you for what you did, though I wish you had come to me first. All I’ve ever wanted for you and JJ is for you to have each other, to look out for one and other, and I should have seen that wasn’t what was happening._

_I know you have no reason to trust me to be fair to you right now, but when you’re ready, I want us to talk about the other night, and your brother. About everything that has happened and how we can fix things between us and with your brother. And when you’re ready, I would like you to come home._

_No matter what happens, Stiles, you are as much my son as JJ and I will always love you._

Stiles blinked back the tears that were welling in his eyes and headed to the station to see his dad before he could chicken out.

//

“Stiles!” Derek called, just before Stiles opened the door to the Sheriff’s office.

Stiles looked up at the sky. “You have got to me kidding me,” he muttered. “This is _exactly_ what I need today.”

Derek jogged across the parking lot to Stiles and it was painful how good he looked in jeans and grey t-shirt.

“Wow,” Derek breathed when he reached Stiles, gesturing at the lurid purple black eye that was still painfully decorating his face. “That’s pretty impressive.”

“You should see the other guy,” Stiles replied, because when all else failed there was always cracking a joke.

Something shifted in Derek’s expression and oh god he _knew_.

All the breath left Stiles in a rush. “You’ve seen JJ?”

Derek nodded, scratching the back of his head and keeping his eyes focused on the floor. “He came to see me. Told me what happened.”

Stiles rolled his head back and swallowed the frustrated groan that was desperate to get out. “Of course he did.”

It was probably the first thing JJ had done; gone and told Derek how Stiles had violently attacked him and this was it. Now everything they’d been building, their friendship, was another victim of Stiles’ loss of control and JJ’s desperate need to win, to beat Stiles. As if he hadn’t won enough already.

“What did he say?” Stiles asked his sneakers, because there’d never been a wound he hadn’t poked.

“That you guys got into a fight,” Derek said. “That you were defending my honor.”

Stiles looked up, heart pounding because _of course_. Why would JJ tell Derek that Stiles was a violent moron when he could tell him the truth about Stiles’ sad and pathetic crush? “Oh.”

Only Derek didn’t look mad, not even, as he took a step closer to Stiles. “He said that you were pissed that he was dodging my calls and that he’d hooked up with someone else.”

“Well, yeah,” Stiles confessed, shoving his hands in his pockets. It wasn’t as if there was a lie out there that’d save him. “I mean, that’s how is started but it wasn’t just about that. If I was defending anyone’s honor, it was Scott’s.”

And that was the truth. Well, almost the truth. The first punch might have been about Derek, but everything after was because JJ brought Scott into it.

Derek looked down at the sidewalk, shoulders slumping. “Oh,” he echoed, voice small. 

Stiles blinked, hands slipping out of his pockets. “ _Oh_?”

“I just,” Derek shrugged, staring over Stiles’ shoulder. “It’s stupid.”

“I guarantee you, whatever you say I am not going to think it’s stupid. I have the market on stupid in this town and no one has yet unseated me from my position of glory. Not even Greenburg in my class who had to be epi-penned in the cafeteria a week before graduation, because he didn’t realize strawberries were in strawberry cheesecake.”

Derek finally looked at Stiles again, mouth turning down at the corners. “Stiles, you’re not stupid. Why would you think that about yourself?”

Stiles laughed. _Jesus_ , he might have thought they were on their way to being friends before JJ got in the way, again, but Derek really hadn’t been paying that much attention to Stiles’ base personality. “Because of a long and illustrious career of doing dumb things, the most recent of which being punching my very athletic twin in the face without thinking of the inevitable pain and suffering I’d reap upon myself,” he waved at his face, though the physical pain was hardly the worst. “Now tell me why you _oh_ ’d at my defending of Scott’s tender and delicate honor.”

Derek’s shoulders slumped, impossibly, even further down, making him look almost fragile. “JJ said you were mad that we were sleeping together; that you wanted to ask me out.”

Stiles swallowed. “Oh.”

“Oh?”

Stiles had been prepared for JJ telling Derek the truth, but he wasn’t ready for how distraught Derek looked by just the idea that Stiles liked him. 

“I –,” Stiles tried, almost lost for words as he felt his cheeks burn. “I’m sorry, if this has made things awkward. I don’t want -,” Stiles looked up at the obnoxiously bright blue sky and took a deep breath. “I don’t want you to think that us being friends was me trying to manipulate you, or something. I knew you weren’t – I _know_ you’re not interested in anything more. With me.”

“JJ was telling the truth?”

“Er, yeah,” Stiles said dropping his gaze to Derek’s shoulder. “I was going to ask you out, before JJ got back into town, and then. Well, you know what happened with you and JJ.”

“Stiles,” Derek said softly, reaching out to touch Stiles on the elbow. “It was just sex.”

“What?” Stiles had been manfully resisting looking at Derek, but that was enough to snap his attention back to Derek’s face.

Derek shrugged again, face awkward but earnest. “With JJ, it was just sex.”

“That’s – you know what, I have no idea what to do with that.”

Derek huffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “What I mean is, I don’t _like_ him. In fact, he’s a bit of a jackass.”

Stiles laughed, hard and a little bitter, because that was hardly news. “You have no idea.”

“I haven’t been trying to speak to JJ for a hook up,” Derek said slowly. “I needed to ask him to do something for me, but I’d made it clear we were done weeks ago.”

“What?” Stiles felt like he’d lost the entire thread of the conversation.

“I don’t like JJ,” Derek said softly, taking another step closer to Stiles, so close he could feel Derek’s breath on his cheeks. “I like _you_. I thought you weren’t interested.”

Stiles’ whole body tensed. “You’re joking, right? This is some really cruel joke that JJ has you in on, isn’t it, to get me back for hitting him? Because this cannot be happening.”

Derek reached out, squeezing Stiles’ elbow. “I’m not joking. I like you. _You_ ,” he said and it was so sincere, so heartfelt it made Stiles’ chest ache because wasn’t that just his crappy luck, everything he wanted too late and impossible to have.

He stepped back, slipping his arm out of Derek’s touch before he was tempted to do something even more stupid than hitting JJ, like kissing Derek. “I don’t – I don’t know what to say to that.”

Derek gave him a small, hopeful smile. “Say you’ll go out with me this weekend? Dinner and Jurassic World?”

Stiles took another step back, looked down at his shaking hands and took a deep breath before meeting his eyes. “Derek, I really like you. I mean, how could I not? You’re a great guy, you’re funny and you’re smart, and that you’re literally the hottest person I’ve ever seen in my life is like the icing on one really awesome cake, but I can’t. I can’t do this, not with you.” 

“Why?”

Stiles had to look away, stare out at the line of patrol cars in the parking lot rather than face the hurt, the _disappointment_ on Derek’s face. “I’m not JJ.” 

“That’s sort of the point. I don’t _want_ JJ.”

“Derek,” Stiles forced out through the lump in his throat, past the sharp stabbing pain in his chest that screamed _not_ to do the right thing, but he’d been dumb enough as it was. Telling JJ about Derek; hitting him; letting Derek confess whatever this was to him. He couldn’t let himself do this, couldn’t deliberately hurt himself even more than he already had.

“I’m nineteen and I only just graduated high school. I’m not just a virgin but the only person I’ve made out with is Scott when we were nine. I’ve got serious attention issues, I hate sports and my idea of a good Friday night is mainlining Game of Thrones or all of the extended Lord of the Rings movies. I’m sarcastic as hell, I’m rude and accidentally mean, like, 90% of the time and I come with a free Scott McCall attachment whether you want him or not. I’m not saying I’m unhappy with the way I am, because I’m not, but I get that I’m sort of the opposite of what everyone wants in a boyfriend.”

“You say that like I didn’t already know all that about you.”

“And maybe that would be okay if I was somebody else, but I’m not. I’m JJ’s identical twin.”

“But you’re not him,” Derek said like it was the most important thing in the world, like it actually mattered.

“I _know_. I’m the shoddy knock-off version with the scars, the twinky buzz cut, and zero fashion sense.”

“Don’t say that,” Derek scowled, arms crossing back over his chest.

“Why?” Stiles demanded, refusing to be distracted by the bulge of Derek’s bicep or the depth of his scowl. “Because it’s true, Derek. You might be blind to it now because JJ’s jerked you around but one day you’re going to see it. That even though we’re identical, JJ is a million times cooler than I am and if we started something, you’d just end up regretting that it was with me.”

Derek looked like Stiles felt, like maybe he’d been gutted. “You really think I’m that shallow? When I’m standing here telling you I don’t care about JJ; that I want to be with you?”

Stiles blinked until his vision wasn’t blurry anymore, but there wasn’t anything he could do to stop the way his whole body was trembling. “I think that I watched you around town for six whole months trying to build up the courage to ask you out and you didn’t notice me enough to say hi, not once, and all it took was one conversation with JJ for him to get in your pants.”

“Stiles -,” Derek reached out, but Stiles stepped back again. And then again.

“No,” he said, as much for himself as for Derek. “I’ve spent my whole life being compared to my brother and coming up short. I can’t do it again. I won’t, not with you.”

Stiles didn’t give Derek a chance to reply, afraid that he’d give in to Derek and hurt himself even more in the long run. He slipped past him and across the parking lot to where he’d left the Jeep, fumbling in his pocket with still trembling hands for his keys. There was no way he could talk to his dad, not after _that_.

“Trouble in paradise?” came a low, raspy voice from behind him.

A shiver ran down his spine, and not the good kind.

“I’m not really in the mood, Kate,” he bit out over his shoulder. He didn’t know where she’d come from and he didn’t care.

He finally pulled his keys out and unlocked the Jeep, climbing inside and slamming the door before she could say anything else. She watched him through the window as he turned over the engine, smirking.

Stiles gunned the engine and left, way above the speed limit.

//

“Hi, Dr. Deaton,” Stiles said when he arrived at the animal clinic. It wasn’t exactly time for Scott’s lunch break, but it wasn’t like Stiles’ morning could be fit into a text.

“Despite what you seem to think, Mr. McCall is actually here to work,” doc Deaton said in that flat, expressionless tone of his that Stiles hated. The man was impossible to read, or influence.

“I’ll clean the kennels,” he offered. Bribery, sometimes, worked.

Doc Deaton gave Stiles the long stare of doom, and then nodded at the door behind him. “I expect it done and you gone by three.”

“Cool,” Stiles said, and slipped behind the staff gate and into the back of the surgery to find Scott.

Scott was in one of the exam rooms literally surrounded by puppies, clambering all over him yipping and barking adorably, except for the one he was hand feeding, which was guzzling from the bottle like it was going to be taken away.

“Hey man!” Scott said with a puppy-loving grin as Stiles dropped on to the floor beside him and scooped up three puppies for heartbreak-relieving snuggles.

Scott’s face dropped. “That bad?”

Stiles let the puppy trying to climb up his chest lick all over his face, probably the most action he was going to see until he got to Irvine, and told Scott all about the messages from his dad and the clusterfuck with Derek. 

“Whoa,” Scott said after taking a couple of seconds to process the massive information dump Stiles had just unloaded.

He didn’t ask why Stiles had turned Derek down; didn’t tell him that he was being stupid or that he should have gone out with Derek and seen what happened. Even if he didn’t understand Stiles’ reasoning – which he probably did, he wasn’t Stiles’ brother for nothing – he knew that arguing with Stiles wasn’t going to change his mind.

Stiles flopped back onto the floor and let the puppies climb all over him like he was a human jungle gym. “Tell me about it.”

Scott put the puppy he’d been feeding on Stiles’ stomach, where it immediately flopped down and started to snore. Stiles rubbed its fluffy belly and watched its back leg twitch.

“Why do you think JJ told Derek you liked him?” Scott finally asked, voicing the question that had been running through Stiles’ brain since he’d climbed into the Jeep. “Like, do you think he knew Derek liked you back?”

Stiles snorted. “Are you actually suggesting that JJ tried to do something nice for me?”

“Maybe you punched the douchebag out of him?”

Stiles laughed. “If that’s true, I should’ve punched him years ago.”

Scott reached over and rescued one of the puppies that was scrabbling on Stiles’ thigh, trying not to slip off. “Dude, you should have punched him years ago, period.”

Scott was probably right. It would have been a lot easier to get away with at fourteen when being young and dumb was still a valid excuse for doing young and dumb stuff. “Probably.”

An overexcited puppy kicked Stiles in the nuts, and _wow_ didn’t that just sum up his day nicely. “It’s not wrong is it, that I’m just assuming when JJ told Derek it wasn’t because he thought it might actually be helping me out?”

“It’s JJ,” Scott said and lifted the puppy off, but not before it got in another kick to Stiles’ junk.

“Ow!” Stiles moaned, rubbing his dick as it throbbed, and not in the fun way.

Scott sniggered, clutching the squirming puppy to his chest and offering it a fresh bottle. “Do you think JJ knew that you couldn’t go out with Derek if he asked and that’s why he told him?”

“No. I think that JJ is so full of his own crap that he can’t even imagine a world where Derek Hale would want me over him and that’s why he told him. I get rejected, our friendship goes kaboom and JJ laughs like Doctor Evil at his perfect petty revenge. The joke would be on him, Derek liking me back, only who are we kidding? The joke’s still on me.”

Stiles closed his eyes and sighed hard enough he dislodged two of the puppies. One nipped the back of his hand. Scott, the beautiful soul that he was, trusted everyone he ever met to be good at heart. Everyone except JJ who’d proved over and over again he wasn’t, not when it came to Stiles.

“It’s stupid,” he confessed, “but I really want to believe that he did it because he was sorry.”

“It’s not stupid,” Scott said and Stiles opened his eyes to the stubborn set of Scott’s jaw that meant his mind was made up and there was no changing it. “I’m your brother in everything and Stiles man, that’s never going to change, but JJ is like, your actual brother. I know you don’t like to think about him like that, because he’s been a jerk to you forever, but I’ve seen the pictures in your house of when you were little.”

 _Of when you were so close only mom and dad could tell you apart, of when you were inseparable,_ goes unsaid.

“It’s not stupid to hope that your brother might actually, for once, do something to try and make you happy instead of crapping all over you.”

“No,” Stiles said, patting Scott on the knee before hauling himself up, causing a mini-cascade of puppies, “but it’s really dumb to think that JJ is going to change now. If anything I’d said when we fought meant anything to him, he wouldn’t have gone to tell Derek about the fight. He’d have come to me and said sorry, or tried to fix it. Something, anything.”

“Are you going to go home?”

Stiles shook his head. “I think dad wants me to try and fix things with JJ, but.”

“But JJ is a jackass?”

“There’s that,” Stiles snorted. He rubbed his hand over his face and accepted the fact that reality sucked. “And y’know, the fact that there’s nothing to be fixed. JJ isn’t going to change, but I can. I’m tired of just shutting up and accepting that JJ treats me like crap. I’m done with it. I’m done with him. If he ever wants to be a real brother, he knows where to find me.”

Scott pulled him into a tight hug, patting him hard on the back. “You’ve always got me, and my mom.”

Stiles laughed, burying his face in Scott’s neck. “Yeah, I do, and you know what else I’ve got?”

“What?”

“Kennels to clean out.”

Scott grinned, standing and pulling Stiles to his feet. “Sucks to be you.”

//

The next evening Stiles was still hiding out at the McCalls when the doorbell rang. He was watching reruns of Cake Boss, sprawled across the couch, as a pan of caramel brownies baking in the oven ready to be given to Mrs. McCall as a _thank you for harbouring a fugitive_ offering when she got off the late shift. Scott had been called into work to assist with an after-hours surgery on a dog hit by a car and Dr. Deaton had made it clear to Scott that Stiles wasn’t allowed go with him, despite his offers of further free labour. He was so on top of the McCall housework that he’d actually run out of stuff to do.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he muttered as the bell rang again and hauled himself off the couch, flicking the TV to mute as he went. “Keep your pants on.”

The McCalls didn’t have a peephole. They had weird frosted glass panels in the door that only gave you a really shitty vague sort of shape of the person on the other side and as a bonus, let them know you were home.

“Stiles?” Derek called through the door.

Stiles groaned. Loudly. “You really couldn’t cut me a break, could you?” he asked no one.

Stiles took a deep breath, cursed life, the universe, and everything and opened the door. “Derek.”

“Hi,” he said in return, not so subtly peering over Stiles’ shoulder. “Are you home alone?”

Stiles pulled the door a little closer to the frame, leaning just his head and right shoulder out. “Why?”

“I came by earlier,” Derek said, gesturing at the house. “A couple of times, actually, but Scott wouldn’t let me see you.”

“Yeaaaah,” Stiles said and that explained a hell of a lot of Scott’s weird squirrely behaviour that afternoon. Stiles loved Scott, a lot. “That’s kind of what brothers do, prevent further emotional trauma and heartache where possible.”

“You rejected _me_.”

Stiles closed his eyes against the sight of Derek Hale pouting, actually _pouting,_ and resisted the urge to smack his face repeatedly into the door jam, because that would be a really bad idea with a black eye and head wound. “Well, if you think yesterday was fun for me then you really don’t know me, like at all. It sucked pretty hard and I’m not really feeling like having a live action replay, so you should probably go now.”

Stiles stepped back into the McCall house, ready to shut the door and hope to god that Derek left him alone before he totally folded like a cheap suit and opened himself up to a future of unending pain, when Derek realized that Stiles wasn’t as much like trading up from JJ as he thought it’d be.

Only Derek reached out, fingers curling around the door but without any force. “Please, Stiles,” he pleaded. “I just want you to give me a chance to explain.”

“Explain what, exactly?” Stiles demanded, glaring at Derek’s hand until he pulled it away, taking refuge in his anger and frustration, letting it bubble up and out and swallow his hope and his _want_ whole. “How you’ve been fucking my brother and now you’ve finally realized he’s a jackass and I’m not so you thought you’d switch him for me? That I’d just be cool with it until you decided that you wanted to switch back again?”

Derek stepped back, hunching in on himself even more. “I know it seems like that, but it’s not. I swear,” he whispered, eyes wide and sincere and so fucking heartbreaking. “I’m not switching you for anyone.”

“And here’s a line I never thought I’d say,” he said, anger crashing hard and fast, sending him to dizzy new heights in how crappy he could feel in a single moment. “But if you actually like me, then you really need to let this drop.”

“You’re wrong,” Derek said, voice heavy with defeat. “You’re wrong about me, and me and JJ, and you’re really wrong about me and you, but I won’t-. If you want me to stop, then I will, because I don’t want to hurt you.”

Stiles looked at the floor, breathed deep and then met Derek’s eyes. “Then I think you should go now.”

Derek nodded, shuffling back onto the porch. “I will. Just-.”

“What?”

Derek looked over his shoulder, eyes flickering along the street for a long moment before he looked back at Stiles. “Promise me you’ll be safe.”

Stiles laughed, pressing the uninjured side of his face into the doorjamb. “Nothing’s going to happen to me.” At least, nothing worse than what already had.

“I know,” Derek said, something dark and hard flashing in his eyes.

Stiles didn’t wait. He shut the door, resting his head against the cool wood and counting each breath in and out, in and out, until he remembered how to do it on his own.

//

Stiles waited until Derek’s porn car had pulled out of the McCall’s drive and vanished around the corner with the rumble of a gunned engine before he went upstairs and changed.

It was still light out, even if the sun was hanging low in the sky, and there wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to be able to sit around on his ass, not after that. He pulled on his running gear, grabbed his phone and keys and hit the road until his legs ached, his lungs burned, and his brain finally stopped replaying the look on Derek’s face as he’d pleaded for Stiles to give him the one thing he couldn’t.

“Fuck,” he said, as he stumbled on trembling legs and finally stopped to look up.

It was dark out, though he hadn’t noticed the streetlamps come on and the sun set. Sweat ran down his face, and neck and back, the early night air still warm on his skin. He had no idea where he was, only that it wasn’t anywhere in the McCall neighborhood.

His dad was going to kill him.

He rolled his head back, working out the crick in his neck, and then he saw it. Derek’s words _promise me you’ll be safe_ rang in his ears as he stared at it rising between the gap in the two-story houses at the end of the street.

The moon. Burning bright and fat and _full_.

“Oh shit,” he gasped, remembering that conversation with his dad that had been less than two weeks ago but felt like years. “I am in so much trouble.”

He pulled his phone out to work out where the fuck he was and the quickest way to get back to the McCall house. Then everything went black.

//

When Stiles came to, the back of his head was pounding in time with the rapidly increasing thumping beat of his heart. He was in the preserve.

“What the-,” he began, cut off by a wave of nausea as he tried to sit up and realized the barrel of a shotgun was stuck in his face.

“Wakey wakey, bambi eyes,” Kate Argent sang, eyes glinting gleefully in the moonlight. “You almost slept through the party.”

Stiles swallowed down the nausea and hauled himself to his feet, blinking until the world came back into focus. “I wouldn’t exactly call this a party.”

He recognised the bit of the preserve she’d brought him to; it wasn’t too far from his old running route. They were a little off the trail – not that anyone would be out on it so late at night – and nowhere near the road. That it was Kate Argent in front of him, armed with a gun, a knife at her belt and a look on her face that wouldn’t have been out of place in Eichen House wasn’t _actually_ a surprise.

She’d dumped him in front of the stump of what had to have been a seriously old tree before it had been cut down, based on the size of the trunk. Looking down he was in the middle of a large ring of dark grey ash. It was all pretty messed up – seriously, what the fuck? – but what would you expect from someone faking wolf killings other than crazy. No, the bit that Stiles couldn’t get his aching head around was the fact that of all the people in town, she’d taken _him_.

“You have to know this is going to end really badly for you, right?” he said, poking the back of his head with a hiss at the sharp flash of pain it sparked; his fingers came away slick and red. “I mean, you’re seriously crazy but I don’t think you’re like, totally dumb. Or maybe you are, because kidnapping and trying to murder one of the Sheriff’s kids is way up there on the list of dumbest things ever, waaaay dumber than I’ve ever managed and that’s saying something.”

“Oh bambi,” Kate tutted a girlish pout twisting her face grotesquely. “It’s so cute how you think you can distract me with that pretty mouth of yours. And that it’s only going to be _attempted_ murder. We’re just waiting for the guest of honor.”

Stiles tensed. How had he missed it? The steady rustle of crunching undergrowth; the sound of someone moving through the preserve, getting closer. And oh god she had an _accomplice_. That was why his dad hadn’t been able to pin her down for half of the attacks, why her alibis in Beacon City checked out. She wasn’t working alone.

“Who is it?” he asked, squaring his shoulders.

Kate smirked. “Just you wait and see.” She flicked the safety off. “And don’t even think about moving.”

“Kate,” a voice spat from behind him.

Stiles spun around so fast he almost threw up. Or maybe it was just because Stiles knew that voice, knew the broad shoulders, and the strong arms and the narrow waist. Knew it was Derek Hale before he even stepped into the clearing surrounding the old tree stump and the moonlight lit up his face.

“No,” Stiles moaned, sinking to his hands and knees.

It couldn’t be Derek. It _couldn’t_.

“Stiles,” Derek said, commanding Stiles to look up at him with just his tone. “You’re going to be okay. I’m not going to let her hurt you.”

Kate laughed, like every clichéd villain brought to life. “You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep, Derek.”

“Let him go,” Derek growled, hands clenching into fists at his side.

Kate stepped over the line of ash around them taking obvious care not to disturb it and grabbed Stiles by the chin, forcing him to look up at her, grip tightening painfully as he tried to pull away. “It’s such a shame,” she pouted.  “I tried to warn you about Derek, that he’s an _animal_ , and you really should have listened to me.”

“Kate,” Derek said again, stopping next to Kate, just before the line of ash. It must have been the stress, or a trick of the light, but Stiles could have sworn his eyes flashed electric blue. “He doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

Stiles’ chest felt tight. He didn’t want to believe that Derek was working with Kate, that they’d been killing people together. He closed his eyes, too afraid of what he’d see on Derek’s face if he looked any longer.

Kate laughed again, an overly girlish giggle and all mockery. “Oh sweetie, did you really think that was going to work?”

“You want me,” Derek said. The leaves on the preserve floor rustled under his feet. “I’m here.”

Stiles looked. He had to.

Derek had moved around the edge of the circle of ash, forcing Kate to turn her back on Stiles to keep her eyes on Derek. His hands were in the air, in surrender.

Stiles tried, and failed, to calm his breathing down.

Kate cocked her hip and pulled the knife out of its sheath. “Of course you are. Why do you think I took him?” She nodded back at Stiles. “You’re so predictable Derek. I knew you’d come for him.”

Derek dropped to his knees. “Let him go. You don’t need to hurt him,” he said, he _begged_. “Finish what you started. Kill me and blame me for the attacks, say you caught me and I confessed. Just let him go.”

And oh god oh god _oh god_ , Stiles had been right. It wasn’t Derek. It was all Kate and she was trying to frame Derek. She was _going_ to frame Derek and he was going to let her get away with it to save Stiles’ life.

“Derek, don’t-,” Stiles begged, scrambling to his feet only to get the butt of Kate’s shotgun smacking into his face. “Derek,” he moaned into the dirt. “No.”

“Kate,” Derek pleaded and the broken sound of Derek’s voice shattered his heart into pieces. “You’ve won. Let him go.”

“Even if I didn’t need his dead body lying next to yours as ‘evidence’ of your crimes, I wouldn’t let him go,” Kate said stepping back over the ash line, leaning down to lick a long line up the side of Derek’s face. “Victory will taste even sweeter knowing the last thing you see is him, _dead_ , because of you, and knowing there was nothing you could do to stop it. You should have died when I set your house on fire.”

Stiles watched as she blew him a kiss, then shot Derek point blank in the chest with her shotgun.

Stiles screamed.

The shot sent Derek sprawling back into the dirt with a lifeless thump. Kate threw head back and laughed.

“No, no, no, no,” Stiles whimpered, crawling across the ground towards Derek. His face was wet and his eyes stung with tears or blood or both and he had to get to Derek.

Derek was still alive. Stiles could see the shuddering rise and fall of his chest under the bloody mess of the shotgun wound. There was blood everywhere, so much blood.

Kate’s foot stomped down in Stiles’ path, blocking his desperate, shaking crawl towards Derek. “Now where do you think you’re going, bambi?”

Stiles looked up as Kate crouched down, pulling from behind her back a metal hand, each finger tipped with a claw that Stiles knew was razor sharp; had killed six other people and fuck knew how many animals before him. She pressed the tips of the blades under his chin, pushed against the soft, vulnerable skin of his neck until the skin broke and warm trickles of blood ran down his throat.

“Such a pity,” Kate purred. “I wish I could let you live, but-.”

Stiles never heard what the ‘but’ was.

“Kate!” Allison shouted from across the clearing and it was only the fact that Stiles flailed back in shock – because _what the actual fuck?_ – that saved him from getting his throat cut as Kate flinched in surprise.

“Allison,” Kate drawled as she stood, turning to drop her wolf murder machine behind her. “What are you doing here?”

“Get the fuck away from Stiles,” Allison ordered, her voice cold and hard and demanding to be obeyed. That and the bow she had in her hands, drawn and ready to fire, aimed at Kate.

“I think you’re getting confused, sweetie,” Kate tried to charm. “This is what we do. We’re the good guys.”

“No, you’re really not,” Allison ground out. “Now back _off_.”

Stiles watched Kate’s fingers slip under her leather jacket to the waistband of her jeans; heard the click of a safety being flicked off.

“She’s got a gun,” Stiles warned, voice catching in his throat as Kate pulled it out and swung it towards him.

Then she was gone. Pushed to the floor by an invisible force, until Stiles’ brain caught up and he realized Allison had fired first. There was a long, black arrow sticking out of Kate’s shoulder and the force of the impact had knocked her to the ground, the gun thrown from her hands. He grabbed it before she could, flicking the safety back on and launching it as far into the trees as he could with shaking hands.

Allison ran over. She was dressed all in skin-tight black with a quiver of arrows on her back. Like Katniss only more terrifying because she was _real_ and she’d just shot her insane aunt and was looking a little crazy in the eyes herself.

“You’re going to answer for this, Kate. For all your crimes.”

Kate laughed, manic and sickening and before either of them could stop her she pulled another gun from under her left arm and blew her brains out.

Stiles felt the blood and _oh god_ brains splatter against his face and neck and hands. He threw himself to the side and vomited into the dirt until there was nothing left to throw up, not even bile.

Someone moaned. It was too deep to be Allison so it must have been him.

Only Allison was shoving past him. “Oh god, Derek,” she cried.

And _oh god_ , Derek. It was Derek. Derek was still alive.

Stiles forced himself to his feet, lurching over to where Allison was kneeling beside the gasping, moaning mess that Kate had made of Derek. It was like a train wreck; he couldn’t look away.

“Stiles!” Allison screamed, snapping his attention away from the gaping holes in Derek’s chest, the black ooze dripping from his mouth and the gushing of blood, dark and slick on her hands where they pressed against his chest, white in the moonlight.

“Stiles,” she said again as he looked at her face, pale and wet with blood and tears. “Stiles, I need you to listen to me. Derek doesn’t have much time.”

“We should call 911,” he said, dropping to his knees beside Derek and adding his hands to Allison’s, pressing against Derek’s chest in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding. “Call for help,” he said, the words falling out automatically though he knew there wasn’t enough time. The gunshot wounds were too big, there was too much blood and Derek was already starting to go still and cold under Stiles’ hands. A trick of the light made Derek’s veins look black.

“Stiles,” Allison cried, blood-wet hands grabbing his face and forcing him to look into her panicked eyes. “We can save him. We can save Derek but you have to trust me. Do you trust me?”

Stiles nodded, eyes blurring with tears as Derek moaned in pain beside them.

“Go to Kate and check her pockets. I need shotgun rounds, two at least.”

Stiles frowned, mouth half open to tell her _more bullets aren’t going to fix a shotgun blast to the chest_ but she was shaking him before he could speak, teeth clattering together with the force of it. “Don’t ask questions, just do it if you want Derek to live.”

“Stiles,” Derek groaned, reaching out to squeeze Stiles’ wrist, forcing out from between gritted teeth. “Trust Allison.”

Stiles nodded, scrubbing his eyes dry with his free hand. Derek let go, a bloody handprint left around Stiles’ wrist as he scrabbled to his feet.

He didn’t look at Kate’s cold, dead eyes as he pawed through her pockets with shaking hands until his fingers curled around fresh shells.

“I’ve got them,” he said, skidding to his knees next to Allison and handing them over.

Derek was barely breathing, each rise of his chest slow and shuddering. He grabbed Derek’s hand in his own and squeezed hard, counted each of his breaths in and out and tried to fight down the panic, the blackness creeping into the edge of his vision. “Derek, you just have to hold on, okay? You can’t die, you hear me. You’re not allowed to die because you got between me and a psycho with a gun, alright? Don’t make me live with that.”

He looked up at Allison. “What are you doing?” he demanded as Allison poured the powder from inside the two shotgun shells on the broad, wide edge of Kate’s knife.

“You need to hold him down,” Allison said, fumbling with the old zippo lighter she’d carried since her mom died. It sparked to life and the powder on the knife exploded into a flash of purple smoke and flames that burned out as quickly as it came to life.

“Hold. Him. Down,” Allison ordered and Stiles’ body was complying before his brain even caught up, pushing his weight down onto Derek’s shoulders as Allison poured the powder from the knife into Derek’s open wounds.

For a moment, everything happened in slow motion. Derek’s face did something that looked like CGI for a cheesy B movie and then he roared, back arching as smoke streamed from the shotgun wounds.

“Holy shitting fucking crap, what was _that_?” Stiles shrieked, scrambling back and away as his heart pounded like a drum inside his chest, trying to beat its way out from behind his ribcage as Derek slumped back down into the dirt and puked up mouthful after mouthful of black crap.

Stiles crept closer, whole body shaking and deafened by the roar of his pulse and the echo of Derek’s animalistic screams.

Derek’s shirt was bloody, littered with holes from the shotgun as Stiles watched the raw red of flesh and blood and the white of bone beneath it vanish, pink flesh knitting itself together before his very eyes.

“What the hell is going on?” he demanded, voice reaching pitches it hadn’t seen since his balls started to drop. He clutched his hands over his mouth, trying to hold in the wave of questions, of curses, of tears and _screams_ that wanted to escape.

“It’s okay,” Allison said, slumping forward, a hand grabbing Stiles’ thigh. Hard. “You can’t tell anyone about what just happened, but we’re going to explain. Okay? I promise.”

Stiles laughed, the sound of it escaping from behind his hand, high and more than a little hysterical. Like anyone would _believe_ him.

He fell back into the dirt, laughing and crying and struggling to breathe. Then his dad, and the cavalry, showed up.

//

“Stiles!” his dad said, voice frantic and eyes wide as he dropped to his knees beside Stiles. “Stiles, _Jesus_ , Stiles are you okay?”

Stiles shook his head, the crunching of dead leaves ringing in his ears with the sounds of sirens in the distance, more dogs and police. Somewhere Allison was crying and Stiles could hear Derek’s voice, telling someone that Kate tried to kill them and Allison saved them both, and it was impossible.

Derek had been shot. He couldn’t be okay, that wasn’t how the real world worked; Stiles had to be dead. Kate had killed Derek and then killed him too and the afterlife really sucked.

“Stiles,” his dad said again, pressing Stiles’ hand over his own heart. Stiles felt the soft cotton of his dad’s uniform under his fingers, the cool edge of his badge and the steady rise and fall of his chest. “Stiles, son, I need you to breathe. Breathe with me.”

Stiles was trying, but it wasn’t working. The world was fading around the edges, turning dark and hazy.

His dad called for an EMT and Derek appeared above him; face covered in blood, scared and impossibly okay.

“Stiles,” Derek said taking his other hand. “You’re going to be okay.”

For the second time that day, the world went black.

//

Stiles came to in a hospital bed. Everything was white and sterile-smelling except for his dad and Scott who were sitting in the chairs next to his bed. His dad was holding his hand, shoulders slumped in on himself like the weight of the world was on them, while Scott was sprawled across his legs, pinning them down as he drooled and snuffled into the sheets.

“Gyngh,” he croaked, totally failing to make any coherent sound, his throat dry and sore under the hazy warmth of the good kind of pain medication. His head throbbed in time with the beat of his heart and he really didn’t like how he was getting used to the feeling.

Scott bolted upright as his dad leaped out of his chair, pressing a straw to Stiles’ lips so he could guzzle down what was possibly the best cup of water he’d ever had in his life. When he was done his dad collapsed forward, resting his head in the curve of Stiles’ neck and breathing out a shaky, wet, “Don’t you ever scare me like that again, kiddo.”

“Ditto,” Scott said, face buried in Stiles’ chest. “I know I scared you with my asthma attack, but this was a shitty way to get revenge.”

Stiles lifted a slow and heavy arm, and wrapped it around his dad’s shoulders in a clumsy hug, before lifting the other to pet Scott’s hair.

“Sorry,” he slurred. “Derek?” he asked, but sleep pulled him back under before they could answer.

//

The next time Stiles woke up it was morning. His dad and Scott were still there, and his dad didn’t even seem to care that Scott was refusing to be more than two feet away from Stiles. After he got checked out by his doctor they were joined by a worried looking Mrs. McCall who fussed over him and Scott, before checking his chart and compulsively adjusting his blankets and bandages. The doctor had diagnosed him with two head wounds, three lacerations on his neck, a concussion and shock. The latter he’d mostly slept off – though he was warned his head would hurt like a bitch for a couple of days and not taking it easy wasn’t an option – and the wounds had already been treated with six stitches in his head, four in his neck and a shit load of dressings and surgical tape.

“What happened last night?” his dad asked, giving Stiles’ hand a supportive squeeze once everyone had been forced to leave, except Scott who was refusing to go anywhere, so Deputy Parrish could come in with his notebook and take Stiles’ statement.

“I don’t know,” he answered. He remembered Allison’s urgent order that he couldn’t tell anyone what had really happened, as if he knew what the fuck had been going on.

“Stiles,” his dad prompted softly, “it’s okay. You’re safe now.”

“I don’t know,” Stiles repeated.

It was the truth.

Scott frowned.

“I went for a run. It was stupid, I’m sorry. I was upset and I forgot and someone hit me. Kate. Kate Argent,” he reached up to touch his neck where she’d pressed the blades, hidden by the thick, soft dressing. “She was going to kill me. She hit me again,” he ran his fingers over his left eyebrow, sending a sharp stabbing throb through his face. He felt the edge of another dressing hiding two of his new stitches.

“What else?”

“I don’t know,” Stiles gasped, Derek’s face flashing in front of his eyes, covered in blood and almost dead and then. _Then_.

“It’s okay,” his dad said softly, brushing a careful hand over the tiny part of Stiles’ head that didn’t hurt, pressing a careful kiss to the side of his face that JJ had hit, ironically, now the least painful part. “Just breathe.”

His dad and Deputy Parrish interpreted Stiles’ declarations of _I don’t know_ to mean that he didn’t remember. That it was to be expected, given the two massive head wounds, and that maybe more details would come back in time.

He didn’t correct them. Scott looked at Stiles with the face that said he knew Stiles was bullshitting, but he squeezed his foot and didn’t say anything. Not that Stiles had doubted for a second that Scott would; Scott always had his back.

“I want to go home.”

His dad nodded. “Okay, kiddo. I’ll go speak to Melissa, see what we can do.”

//

He was finally released from the hospital that evening, with strict instructions to rest and see Mrs. McCall regularly to get his dressings changed until he could get the stitches out. Scott rode back to the house with them, keeping Stiles propped up in the back of the cruiser and then helping his dad get him up the stairs and into bed, his legs too wobbly and clumsy to be trusted to get him there on their own.

“I’m staying with Stiles,” Scott told the Sheriff, and Stiles couldn’t help but beam a little with pride that it wasn’t a question.

Every time Stiles closed his eyes he saw Derek, chest bloody and shredded, or worse, Kate Argent putting the gun to her own head and pulling the trigger. They’d given him something in the hospital to help him sleep; now he just had the pain pills. He wasn’t naïve enough to think that he wouldn’t be having nightmares for weeks, and he sure as fuck didn’t want to be alone.

His dad just nodded and helped Stiles settle into bed as Scott pulled out the emergency overnight Scott kit from the bottom drawer of Stiles’ dresser. “Take these,” he said, giving Stiles his next dose of pain meds and a bottle of water.

Stiles didn’t fight him, swallowing them down with half the water before being tucked into bed like he was a kid again. “Scott’ll keep an eye on you, but you call me if either of you need anything, okay? I’m not going anywhere tonight,” his dad promised, kissing the side of Stiles’ head carefully.

“Sure thing, Mr. Stilinski,” Scott agreed, climbing into bed and curling around Stiles as he murmured what he hoped was a _yes dad_ before he was asleep again.

//

Stiles woke in a cold sweat from a dream about Kate dripping in blood, to the sounds of a pretty intense shouting match going on somewhere in the house. As he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes he realized his head hurt like fuck, it was still dark out, and his dad and JJ were fighting.

“Your brother could have died!” His dad shouted, and _wow_ , he hadn’t even sounded that pissed when Stiles punched JJ in the face.

“But he didn’t!” JJ ground out, loudly.

Stiles’ brain throbbed.

Something slammed. “Jesus, do you even give a crap?”

“About what?” JJ huffed. “You said he’s fine. Why are you giving me such a hard time about this?”

Stiles rolled his eyes and instantly regretted it, vision blurring and stomach lurching violently. Swallowing down the nausea, he fumbled for the water beside his bed until Scott reached over and grabbed it for him.

“They’ve been going at it for a while,” he said, unscrewing the cap and handing Stiles the bottle and another two pills. “You can take some more of these.”

Stiles swallowed the pills and finished the water. He missed whatever his dad’s reply was.

A door slammed somewhere downstairs. Then someone started stamping around like they were wearing fucking lead boots. Stiles’ head hurt so bad he thought his eyeballs might actually start to bleed.

“I don’t believe you!”

“Why are you making such a big deal out of this?”

Stiles slumped back into his bed and tried to smother out the sound with his pillow. “Think you can tell them to shut the fuck up?”

//

When Stiles woke up his Scott-sized octopus was gone and his dad was sitting on the edge of his bed, the shape of him familiar enough that he was only scared shitless for a couple of seconds before he realized that it wasn’t Kate.

“Morning, kiddo,” his dad said, helping him to sit up before handing him a glass of juice and two white pills.

Stiles took both, handing back the empty glass before asking. “Where’s Scott?”

“He had to go to work, said doc Deaton wouldn’t let him have any more time off. He wanted to say goodbye, but didn’t want to wake you.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said around a yawn, rubbing a hand over his face. “Scott’s awesome like that.”

His dad took Stiles’ chin in his hand, turning his face left and then right, leaning in to inspect the damage. Stiles had zero plans to look in a mirror anytime soon; there was no way he didn’t look like a hot mess right now. “How you feeling?”

Stiles shrugged. “Not great. My head hurts, my neck hurts, and I didn’t sleep so good.” Even after his dad and JJ had finally shut the fuck up with their badly timed argument and Scott had resumed his octopus impression, sleep had been one elusive fucker.

Kate, and Derek, just as predicted, had made some pretty gruesome and horrifying appearances in his dreams.

His dad squeezed his non-injured shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, it wasn’t just you and JJ,” Stiles said carefully. Aside from totally not wanting to go back to his crappy therapist to talk about his feelings, as far as his dad knew, Stiles didn’t remember anything. Admitting to nightmares was a whole can of worms he didn’t want to open, not until he knew what had really happened, which was a whole other thing he really didn’t want to think about.

“No, it’s not okay,” his dad said with another squeeze, his shoulders slumping and his face the grim sort of seriousness reserved for really bad cases and talking about mom. “And I don’t just mean for fighting with JJ last night. I’m sorry for suggesting that we try and fix your relationship with JJ after you lost your temper, but mostly for not understanding.”

Stiles fiddled with the sheets bunched up at his waist, something like hope blooming warm in his stomach. “Understanding what?”

His dad sighed. “You and Melissa told me about JJ, about what things have been like for you for a very long time, but I didn’t understand how it could be true. I guess part of me didn’t want to believe that JJ could have been treating you that way and I hadn’t seen it. That you weren’t more than just two brothers with different interests and different friends, and I still didn’t understand why you would call Scott your brother when JJ is your own flesh and blood. I suppose I always thought that when it came down to it, that it would matter for something.”

“Dad-.”

“No, son, let me finish,” his dad said, cutting him off, looking old and tired and sad.

Stiles’ chest hurt.

“I didn’t understand, and I’ll confess I’ve never really got what made you and Scott so close, not until last night. Scott called me, you know? As soon as he got home from work and you weren’t there. He told me your running stuff was missing and he was scared, kiddo, really scared about what might have happened to you. As scared as I was.”

Stiles shrugged. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say, without being an insensitive jerk and pointing out he knew that. No one had told him how they’d found him, but Stiles just assumed that as soon as his dad called Scott to tell him what happened, he’d been pants-wetting levels of terrified. Just like Stiles had been, waiting for the EMTs to arrive before Scott stopped breathing.

His dad chuckled, unfunny and broken enough that Stiles couldn’t raise his eyes from his hands, knotting even tighter in his sheets. “I know, you’re not surprised by that, and I probably shouldn’t have been, but I was.”

His dad tapped the back of his hand, forcing Stiles to look up at him; to see all the seriousness written in the lines of his face. “When we found you, he came straight to the hospital and I couldn’t have pried him away from you with a crowbar. Melissa didn’t even try.”

Stiles couldn’t stop the smile, the surge of affection he felt for Mrs. McCall. “She does sort of know better,” he admitted. 

His dad swallowed, and then it was his turn to look away. “JJ wouldn’t come and see you.”

“I know.” He’d been pretty conspicuous in his absence. Not that Stiles had actually wanted to see him.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so mad at your brother as I was last night when he -,” his dad ground out, jaw tight.

“I heard,” Stiles interrupted. “Sort of. Enough to get the message: I’m not actually dead so why the fuss?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.” His dad scrubbed his hand over his face. Stiles watched the heavy rise and fall of his chest, the kind of deep breathing he did when trying not to smack unrepentant wife-beaters into next week. “Your brother wouldn’t even come and see you at the hospital because I told him you were going to be okay, but the only way we could have gotten rid of Scott was with bodily force.”

Stiles smiled, chest filling up with warm and fuzzy feelings for Scott, for the fact that his dad might get it now, for real. “That’s my Scott.”

“So I wanted to say I’m sorry, and I was wrong. Scott and Melissa are your family too. They’re the family you made when we, when _I_ , let you down.”

“Dad,” Stiles sniffed, eyes filling up completely without his permission until his face was wet and his dad was pulling him into a crushing hug. “You didn’t let me down.”

“I did, kiddo, I really did.” He kissed the top of Stiles’ head. “I should have seen what JJ was doing to you years ago and I should have done something about it. I can’t undo that, though I wish I could. All I can do is promise that I understand now, why you call Scott your brother and why you’re right.”

Stiles wrapped his arms around his dad and hugged him back. “Thanks, dad.”

His dad kissed his head again. “I love you, kiddo. I know I might not have made it seem like I did, as much as I loved JJ, but I do. If anything had happened to you-.”

Stiles hugged him harder. “It’s okay, dad. I know, I know, okay?”

They indulged in some emotional manly hugging for a couple more minutes before his dad let him go, wiping at his damp, red eyes. “You think you can handle some food?”

Stiles felt a smile tug at the corner of his lips. “Only if you’re not cooking it.”

//

When Scott came back from work that night he had a casserole from Mrs. McCall and strict reheating instructions that included _don’t let Stiles do it_ under pain of pain.

“She was pretty serious, bro,” Scott said, taking the casserole dish from the oven when Stiles had been lured down the stairs by the smell of food and demanded to know why Scott hadn’t come to get him to help.

Stiles let Scott shoo him over to the table and give him a plate of casserole and glass of juice. His stomach gave a deep, wet gurgle and he wasn’t sure if it meant that he needed to eat something or really, _really_ shouldn’t.

“Dude,” Scott laughed, before inhaling his.

Stiles poked a spoon around the plate, figuring the total lack of enthusiasm he was having for one of his favorite foods ever meant his stomach had been trying to say _don’t even think about it_.

“This is so unfair,” he said, when he caught Scott staring at his full plate.

Scott put a slice of bread on the edge of his plate from a bowl in the middle of the table Stiles hadn’t even noticed. “Mom said you should try to eat something, even if you’re still feeling pukey.”

Stiles pulled a face.

Scott upped the ante with the puppy dog eyes.

“Fine,” Stiles caved. “If I hurl, I’m aiming for you,” he said, nibbling at the edge of the bread.

His stomach churned then started to settle down as he picked at the bread, then a few tentative mouthfuls of casserole, before giving up.

“There’s enough leftovers for you tomorrow, and your dad. He called me to say he was probably going to be late tonight,” Scott added, carefully. “Kate stuff.”

Stiles nodded. “He got called in after lunch. He didn’t want to go, but I told him I’d be fine and probably sleep the rest of the day. And guess what I did?”

Instead of grinning at his superior napping skills Scott gave Stiles his very sincere puppy face.

Stiles braced himself.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“My awesome all day nap?” he tried to deflect.

There was no way in hell he could talk to Scott about what happened. Scott would see through his crap in an instant, just like he had at the hospital, and he couldn’t tell him the truth. He didn’t even know what the truth was; only that he’d made a promise not to say anything, to anyone, until he had answers.

“You know what I’m talking about, man. What happened in the preserve?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he answered, which, technically was true.

“Bullshit,” Scott called, not falling for it. It was the only downside to having a brother who knew you better than you knew yourself. “You told your dad and Parrish that you didn’t remember anything and I know you were lying. You were having really intense nightmares last night, about Kate and Derek, and if you don’t want to talk to me because you think it’s going to freak me out or something, you need to talk to someone.”

“I can’t talk about what happened because I don’t _know_ what happened,” he groaned, hiding his face in his hands.

It had all been so fucking crazy. Even if he hadn’t promised Allison, and Derek, that he wouldn’t say anything for now, what could he tell Scott that wouldn’t make him sound insane? That Derek was some sort of magical creature of the night and Kate had shot him, but it was all okay because Allison healed him by putting burnt wolf’s bane ash in his wounds. That Stiles knew exactly what he’d seen in the clearing, because the moon had been bright and full and _fuck._

Derek was a werewolf.

The full moon. The wolf’s bane. The claw. The wolf’s hair. Derek’s B-movie horror movie monster face.

He was a _werewolf_.

“You need to tell your dad what you remember,” Scott said, his hand a warm, heavy weight between Stiles’ shoulder blades.

He took a couple of long, deep breaths. They didn’t make him feel any better. “I think I need to lay down, or I really am going to hurl.”

 _Werewolves._  

Scott took one look at his face and then helped him back upstairs and into bed without even one crack about faking it to get out of talking, which meant he’d probably turned pre-panic attack gray.

“I’m sorry,” Scott said, curling up next to him and burying his face in Stiles’ neck. “I just don’t get why you’re saying you don’t remember.”

Stiles didn’t say _because I’m pretty sure that Derek is a werewolf_. No one would believe him, and worse, if they did, they’d probably think that Derek was the dangerous one when it’d been Kate. Horrible, crazy, human Kate against sweet, self-sacrificing Derek who also just happened to be a mythical rage beast, only without the rage or the beast.

“Because it’s easier than saying I don’t know what happened,” Stiles admitted.

He could feel Scott’s frown it was so intense. “But you do remember?”

Stiles nodded.

“But you won’t tell me what happened.”

“I can’t,” Stiles answered. It was a pretty crappy one, but the only one he had.

Other than the one he couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ , give. Werewolves.

“I’m sorry,” he said, burrowing his arm under Scott to hug him. “I just need you to trust me on this, bro. I wish I could, but I can’t.”

“Okay,” Scott agreed and Stiles hated himself, more than a little.

He’d never had a secret from Scott bigger than a surprise birthday party, but then, he’d never known something Scott would never believe before.

“This kinda sucks.”

Scott snorted. “Tell me about it.”

//

Allison showed up the next afternoon when Scott was at work, Stiles’ secret forgiven if not forgotten, and Stiles was finally starting to feel like his brain wasn’t trying to claw out of his skull. She perched on the edge of his bed wearing baggy, washed out sweats and an expression grim enough to pretty much sum up all of Stiles' feelings.

Scott was not going to buy his bullshit forever.

"How did you convince dad to let you in?" he asked as she carefully lowered herself onto the edge of Stiles' bed. His dad was refusing to let anyone other than Scott or Mrs McCall near him while he was recovering, and still flinching at loud noises.

"He got a call about the other night when I arrived. I promised we wouldn't do anything stupid and trauma-driven while he was gone."

Stiles nodded and pulled the comforter over his head. Even though his headache was finally starting to get better he was still taking his pain meds because they made everything soft and foggy and stopped him from freaking out unless he really thought about what happened.

And now he was thinking about it.

"Now would be a really good time for a) time to rewind to before all the batshit crazy happened or b) you to start explaining things."

He’d been trying really fucking hard not to think about what had happened with Kate, Derek and Allison in the preserve. Being kidnapped by an insane person was horrible and scary enough without trying to process _werewolves_ without any real answers or information. He was having enough super intense nightmares about the whole thing as it was.

Allison pulled down the edge of the comforter, exposing his eyes and nose to the outside world and her beautiful and tragic but oh-so-sincere face. "Why do you think I'm here?"

"To watch me go crazy? Because every time I get close to thinking about what happened, I feel like I'm going crazy, because that night was not normal. Not even in the scheme of crazy murderers."

She gave him the look. The one he was pretty sure she learned from Scott. "I'm here to explain." She bit her bottom lip. "Well…"

"Well?"

"I'm here to take you to Derek's."

Stiles' stomach did a complicated flip, like he was on the world’s worst roller coaster.

"So we can both explain."

"I don't know how I feel about that," he said honestly.

Allison offered him a small, sad smile. "I know. But you want answers, right?"

 _Obviously_.

"I suppose you want me to put on some pants," he huffed and pushed back the comforter, rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

Allison was totally playing him. That didn't make her any less right.

//

By the time they were pulling up outside the Hale house in Allison's SUV Stiles was starting to rethink the whole getting answers plan. Curiosity, as he was frequently reminded, killed the cat.

Derek might have tried to bargain his own life to save Stiles', but there was still the matter of _werewolves_.

The front door of the Hale house opened and Derek stepped out onto the porch. Dressed in jeans and a grey Henley he looked like nothing had happened at all in the preserve, the only hint that something might be wrong in the stern set of his face and the defensive cross of his arms over his chest.

"Maybe this isn't such a good idea," he said to Allison, fiddling with his seatbelt to stop himself from staring at Derek.

"Stiles," she prompted softly. "You need to hear what we, _he_ , has to say. He's not going to hurt you."

Stiles swallowed. His hands were shaking again. "It's not him that I'm afraid of."

Just a couple of days ago Derek had stood in front of Stiles and asked him out on a date. Stiles had turned him down and barely a couple of hours later Derek saved his life.

Stiles wasn't afraid of him, werewolf or not. He was afraid that'd he give in to the urge to kiss Derek all over his stupid and gorgeous face. That he'd say yes to the dinner and the movie and everything Derek had to offer until he realized Stiles wasn't worth it, didn't measure up next to JJ.

Allison considered this, and then got out of the car. "Come on."

Stiles obeyed, following her up the steps to the rebuilt Hale house, his feet suddenly feeling like they were made of lead.

"Allison," Derek said with a nod as she passed into the house. Then the mask of aggressive calm started to crack as he looked at Stiles. "Stiles."

"Er, hi," he said awkwardly, before following Allison into the house. Stiles knew exactly what he looked like and it wasn't pretty. Between the black eye JJ had given him and the cold cock with the shotgun from Kate, at least seventy five per cent of his face was a shade of black, blue or yellowy-green.

Not that the back of his head was any better, but he was still overdue his buzz cut so at least his hair hid some of the damage.

"Do you want anything?" Derek offered as Allison steered Stiles to a couch and made him sit next to her on it.

From the outside of the house all you could tell was that it was new and that it was big. Inside it was pretty amazing, massive windows letting the light and the preserve in, wood floors and warm, comfortable furniture. Even though it was only Derek living there, he'd done what he'd said he was going to. He'd built a family home.

"I think some water for Stiles," Allison said while Stiles was busy staring at everything rather than thinking about Derek, why he was there.

"I don't need any water," he told Derek.

Derek ignored him, turning and leaving the room in the direction of what Stiles assumed to be the kitchen.

Allison patted his hand. "Er, trust me. You're probably going to want some when you hear what we have to say."

"She's right," Derek said, appearing silently out of nowhere, putting a glass of water on the coffee table in front of Stiles.

Stiles jumped so hard he was pretty sure Derek had taken at least a year off his life. "Holy shit."

"Sorry," Derek said softly. He sat down on the armchair opposite the couch, so close to the edge he was barely on it and so tense Stiles was just waiting for Derek to jump up and run away.

It wasn't exactly helping Stiles achieve inner calm. Allison was right. He picked up the water and sipped it until he couldn't take the silence any longer.

"Okay. So are we going to do the big reveal or not?"

Derek and Allison engaged in a brief, and silent exchange where they communicated entirely with eyebrows and mouth twitches. It was the most suspicious, and excluding the night in the preserve, the most serious he’d ever seen Allison look.

“This is going to be a lot to take in,” Allison finally said. Stiles didn’t know if that meant she’d won or lost the eyebrow battle.

Derek’s body language still said he was primed to jump the back of the chair and flee; his face was a raincloud of doom, if it were possible for rainclouds to have that much facial hair.

“So we’re just going to give you the basics and if you want to know more, then we can tell you and there are books we can lend you.”

“Can we just go with the band-aid approach?” Stiles said, because Allison’s careful prepping for whatever the truth was had the potential to drive him pretty crazy if it carried on for much longer. “Because this isn’t really working for me.”

Derek nodded at Allison, jaw clenched tight.

“Werewolves are real,” Allison said. “Derek is a werewolf, almost his whole family are werewolves. The Hales are a very old and respected werewolf line.”

“Your _whole_ family are werewolves too?” 

Allison and Derek stared at him.

He shifted in his seat. “What?”

“You’re not surprised that Derek’s a werewolf?” Allison asked, the edges of her lips curving into a knowing smile.

“Kate was leaving wolf hairs on the bodies,” he explained with a shrug. “We thought – dad and I – it was to help with the animal attack cover. So, I’ve been thinking about it, and I figured that she chose a wolf for a reason and even though the only wolf-like mystical creatures of the night I know about are werewolves, it was probably a good bet.”

“Jesus,” Derek said, rubbing his hand over his face while Allison laughed, stunned. “You’re going to make a really great cop.”

Stiles tried to not preen under the compliment. There was more important shit to sort. He looked at Derek. “Your face? That was your werewolf face?”

Derek nodded, eyes fixed on his hands as he held them out between his knees, fingers spread wide and human-looking. Then they were changing, bones lengthening and fingernails turning into claws. Stiles looked and Derek’s face was, he didn’t even know it what it was, with the hair and the fangs and the burning blue eyes and where the fuck were his eyebrows?

“Wow,” Stiles breathed, shoving his hands under his thighs because he wasn’t sure he could resist the urge to reach out and touch.

“It’s the most common werewolf form,” Derek said, as his face morphed back to normal and his eyebrows reappeared from nowhere. It was insane. “It’s easy for born werewolves to maintain control and only change into that form – the beta shift – when they want to, but there are some things that force the shift.”

“Okay, so we’re going to table the _born_ _werewolves_ and the implication that there are other ways to make werewolves than being born as one, until later but we _are_ coming back to it. There are other forms?”

Derek stared at Stiles like _he_ was the impossible mythical creature of the night. “You’re not afraid?”

“No?” Stiles said, letting Derek know just what a dumb question he thought it was with his face. “You’re not going to hurt me. If that’s what you wanted, you had plenty of chances, wolfy-face or not, and you probably wouldn’t have asked me out, either.”

Derek didn’t look like he believed Stiles; he was watching him like he was going to start losing his shit any minute. “You’re really not freaking out?”

“I told you he wouldn’t,” Allison said, smugly.

Stiles side-eyed her and she was totally grinning. He shrugged.

“While I don’t want to encourage Allison’s taste for being smug, she is sort of right. I mean, I’m going to need a little time to wrap my head around the fact that in the last forty-eight hours my whole worldview has just taken a serious shift into an episode of Supernatural, but. I saw your face, in the preserve, when Allison did whatever the fuck she did to save you. I saw your face and I saw your eyes and I saw you heal from a gunshot wound that should have killed you – that I thought _had_ killed you. I didn’t know what had happened, but I’d pretty much ruled out the explanation being ‘a trick of the light’.”

Derek’s mouth hung open a little and if it hadn’t been for his fucking _adorable_ bunny teeth, it might have been the first not 100% attractive face Stiles had seen on Derek. Stiles resisted the urge to point out to Derek that dumbstruck was not his best look.

“So. Werewolves. Tell me everything. Well, not everything,” he amended. “Not right now. Give me the basics. You said that,” he waved his hand at Derek’s face, “was one form.”

Derek nodded, still staring at Stiles all wide-eyed and a little disbelieving, like it was his world getting turned upside down. “Some werewolves, Alphas – the leader of the pack – like my mom, can fully shift. Into-.”

“Oh my god, your mom can turn into an actual wolf?”

Derek nodded again, the first hint of a smile pulling at the corner of his lips. “Yeah. It’s not – not many wolves can do it, it’s pretty special.”

“Can you do it?” Stiles asked, already imaging just how fucking majestic Derek would look as a wolf.

Derek shook his head; a hint of pink creeping up his cheeks as he looked at the floor like it was the most important thing he’d ever seen in his life. “No. Mom says maybe, one day, but…” he trailed off.

Stiles figured that Derek wanted him to think that he meant he didn’t believe his mom but didn’t want to admit it, but Stiles would have bet all his porn that Derek knew why he couldn’t but was too embarrassed to share it. Stiles, in a moment of uncharacteristic charity, let it drop.

“So what can you do?”

Derek stared again and Stiles shifted under the weight of it. “I mean, other than the claws and the teeth and serious case of mutton chops.”

Allison snorted out a laugh next to him and between them it was enough to snap Derek back out of it.

“Our senses are a lot better than a human’s, hearing, smell, sight – automatic night vision. Physically we’re faster, stronger, and we can heal almost all injuries.”

“Except for shotgun blasts-?” Stiles started and then the light bulb lit up with a bang. “Wolf’s bane. It was the wolf’s bane in the bullet that stopped you from healing. I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Yeah,” Derek agreed, back to looking stunned. “How did you-?”

“Kate,” Allison interjected, eyes lighting up as the jigsaw fell into place. “She wasn’t just leaving hairs on the bodies.”

“Not intentionally, no,” Stiles picked up, “On the wolf hairs they found trace evidence of gunpowder mixed with wolf’s bane.” He paused. “I just don’t know why she went to so much trouble to put the hairs on the body in the first place, not when she was going to kill you and frame you that way. If she hadn’t left the trace evidence on the hairs, I never would have told Allison and she might have…” he trailed off, unable to actually say out loud what might have happened.

Derek looked at Allison, who all of a sudden seemed very small and very angry on the couch next to him,with her shoulders hunched in, tight and tense. “She needed them to look like werewolf kills because my family are werewolf hunters.”

Stiles exhaled sharply. “So you weren’t kidding when you said how you two knew each other was complicated.”

Allison let out a short, sharp laugh and scrubbed the cuff of her sweater over her face. “Yeah, I really wasn’t.”

“Holy shit,” Stiles gasped, another brainwave sparking up. “Argent. Allison _Argent_.”

Derek shot him a confused look.

“Argent means silver in French.”

Allison jerked her chin in agreement. “It’s become a myth that werewolves can be killed with silver, because my family has always hunted werewolves.”

“The Beast of Gévaudan? Kate said it was killed by an Argent, that what was where it started?”

Allison nodded.

“Not killed with silver, killed _by_ silver,” Stiles said, as the pieces came together, as the weight of Allison’s words started to sink in. How had Derek thought that Stiles would be afraid of him when he wasn’t the monster in the room, when he wasn’t the one that had been lying to Stiles for _years_?

“How many werewolves have you killed Allison?” he demanded. “How many _people_ have you killed?”

“None,” she cried, eyes filling with tears. “I swear, I haven’t hurt anyone. Werewolf or human.”

“She hasn’t,” Derek said, handing Allison a tissue.

“The first werewolf my family killed was out of control,” she said, wiping her eyes aggressively with the tissue before balling it up in her hand. “It was attacking a local village, killing people, and it was the only way to stop it. We’re supposed to have a code. When I turned sixteen, mom and dad told me about the ‘real’ family business. They wanted to wait until I’d been to college, but Mom was diagnosed with cancer and in our family, the women are in charge. We make all the decisions and they wanted me to be ready, in case mom didn’t make it.”

She wiped her eyes again, fists clenched tight. “They told me that our job is to protect people and that we never – that a werewolf is never killed unless it’s hurt someone and it can’t be stopped any other way. I believed in that code, I still do.”

“But Allison is in the minority,” Derek said.

Allison’s face crumpled, but she didn’t deny it.

“Most hunters have never met a werewolf, and if they have, they’re rabid omegas, wolves that _are_ dangerous if they can’t be integrated into a pack. They think we’re all just mindless animals that need to be put down.”

Stiles couldn’t stop the horrified noise that came out of his mouth. How could _anyone_ think that Derek was dangerous just because he was a werewolf? He was a firefighter for fuck’s sake.

“Allison’s grandfather is like that. He’s killed a lot of werewolves who deserved to live and he raised Kate to be just like him.”

“He thought Kate would take over as head of the family,” Allison explained, “but dad had already married my mom when grandma died. Mom was from another hunting family and so she took over, leading the Argent hunters. Kate never made a secret of the fact that she was pissed off. Mom was really anti-werewolf but she wasn’t dumb; the Hale pack is really big and old and well-allied across the country. She never approved any move against the Hales.”

Stiles frowned. “But Kate burned this house down?” he looked at Derek for confirmation. “She admitted to it in the preserve, when she was doing her evil villain gloat.” 

“Kate was working on her own,” Allison said.

Stiles snorted.

“Allison’s right,” Derek said softly. “We’ve been comparing what we both know and we’ve talked to Chris, too.”

“Gerard probably put her up to it,” Allison confessed, “but we don’t have any proof other than the fact that he hates Talia Hale and the influence she has over other packs. Kate,” Allison swallowed. “What she did, wasn’t – it was fucked up even by our standards.”

Derek very pointedly looked at the wall instead of Allison or Stiles, swallowing hard before he spoke. “Kate had never lived in Beacon Hills when I met her. I was fifteen and confused about my sexuality. It was hard enough being a secret werewolf at school; I didn’t want to admit that I liked boys as well. So when she was subbing my Phys Ed class and started showing an interest in me, I didn’t think about everything that was wrong with the situation.”

“Jesus,” Stiles breathed. He thought he was going to puke. Kate had to have been in her thirties already and she’d tried to seduce a fifteen-year-old to kill an entire family?

“She wanted me to sneak her into the house one afternoon, so we could – you know. Only, when it came down to it, I couldn’t. Mom knew something was wrong and it didn’t take long for her to work out what was happening. It was only because mom was on alert that everyone survived the fire.”

Stiles didn’t want to, couldn’t, think about what would have happened otherwise. It had almost killed him losing his mom, how would Derek have survived losing his whole family?

He turned to Allison, “Why didn’t your mom do _anything_? How the hell did Kate just walk away to keep on _killing people_ after that!”

Allison tensed and she blinked back fresh tears. “Because my mom hated werewolves; because she probably wished that Kate had done it and gotten away with it.” She scrubbed her eyes furiously. “Dad says that Talia came to her after the fire to demand that Kate be brought into line and punished accordingly. Mom said Kate denied any wrong doing, that Derek had made a pass at her and she rejected him and the fire was just an unlucky accident.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Derek shook his head. “Victoria bought into the _all werewolves are mindless monsters_ just as much as Gerard did, only she was smarter about it. She might not have killed Talia, but she got her out of Beacon Hills.”

“Your family moved to Redding just after the fire.”

“When Victoria protected Kate, mom knew that Beacon Hills wasn’t safe for us anymore. We left and since then we’ve moved all over our territory. We never stay anywhere more than six months and mom has everyone on alert all the time. It’s why Cora ran away, why I came back. Beacon Hills was our territory first and I was tired of running, of not being able to settle down.”

“And Kate decided it was the perfect time to take her revenge?”

Allison nodded, taking up the story. “After the first couple of deaths in Beacon City she came to me asking for formal permission hunt Derek. I said no. There wasn’t any solid evidence that it was a werewolf, let alone him and I said no. Then there was the attack in Beacon Hills and Kate tried to tell me it was proof it was Derek, but I didn’t believe her.”

“Why?” Stiles asked, because there was obviously a reason there and he wanted to, _had_ to, to know it.

“About a week after mom started telling people that the cancer was terminal Derek came to see her,” Allison said, and was crying again, this time letting the tears roll down her face. “An Alpha – like Talia – can turn someone into a werewolf by biting them. If they’re sick and the bite takes, it’ll cure what’s wrong with them. Derek said he’d convince Talia to give my mom the bite, and cure her cancer, if she wanted it. Even after everything Kate had done and my mom had let her get away with it, Derek was willing to try and save her life.”

Stiles didn’t need to be a genius to work out what happened next. He knew how the story ended after all. “Your mom said no.”

“She hated werewolves so much that she’d rather _die_ than be one,” Allison sniffed. “I hated her for it, but I always remembered Derek sitting in our kitchen, my dad pointing a gun at him, offering to save the life of a woman who’d happily see him dead just so his family could come home. I knew Derek wouldn’t hurt anyone. I didn’t suspect Kate until you called me about making wolf’s bane bullets. I didn’t want to believe that she was killing people, innocent people, to try and frame Derek, but- but the more I thought about it the more it made a really horrible sense.”

“Allison came to me,” Derek picked up. “As soon as I’d seen Kate in Beacon Hills I knew she was here to finish what she started, but I wasn’t sure if Allison could be trusted.”

“Derek, don’t feel bad,” Allison said as Derek hung his head. “It’s not like my family has given you much reason to trust us.”

Derek looked up and met Allison’s eyes. “You have now.” He turned to Stiles. “Allison suspected that Kate was going to kill me and claim she caught me in the act and it was the only way to stop me, so Allison was following her on the full moon. I thought Kate was going to come after you, so I was watching you. She gave Allison the slip and blinded me with a flash bomb just after she hit you in the head. I knew where she was going to take you; it’s on the Hale property and an important place for us. I called Allison and came to get you. You know the rest.”

Stiles picked up the glass of water again, taking careful, measured sips until the glass was empty and he thought that maybe he could say something.

“Well,” he said, putting the glass down. “That’s pretty fucked up.”

“I’m sorry, Stiles,” Allison said, wrapping an arm around him and pulling him in close for a hug, her body trembling against his. “I’m so sorry you got caught up in this.”

He bumped his head against hers and instantly regretted it as pain flared up and down the side of his face. “It’s okay, really. It’s not your fault.”

“My family is crazy and my aunt tried to kill you,” she sniffed into his neck.

Stiles pulled back, he wanted her to be able to see his face and how much he wasn’t lying. “Not your fault. You kinda shot her and saved my life, so I think I owe you forever.”

Allison gave a small, wet laugh at that. “How about we call it even?”

“Sure.” He turned to Derek, heart picking up in his chest. “I owe you too.” 

Derek stood up and Stiles only caught a glimpse of his face, hard and serious. “You really don’t,” he said, before stalking out the room.

Stiles watched him go, stomach twisting in knots until Allison put her hand over his. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” he said. “No. I don’t know.”

“Werewolves and blood feuds are a lot to take in,” she said sagely.

Stiles couldn’t help the slightly hysterical laugh that escaped. “Are you kidding me, that was one hell of a Dumbledump. I’m going to have more questions, you know that, right?”

Allison laughed, burying her face in her hands as her shoulders shook. “Of course you will.”

“Thank you,” he said, bumping his shoulder against hers. “For telling me the truth and not trying to convince me that I hallucinated the whole thing as the result of blunt force trauma to the head.”

“Like you’d have let something like this go,” Allison giggled, proving that she knew him way too well.

“True,” he agreed, taking Allison’s hand as she stood and letting her haul him up. “Is Derek going to be okay?”

The laughter dropped from Allison’s face in an instant. “He will be. It’s just -,” she paused. “I think it’s a really big thing for werewolves to tell someone what they are. He wanted to, right away, and I think he would have even if Talia had said no, but it’s a lot of trust to put in someone. It’s got to be scary, not knowing what they’re going to think. Oh,” Allison breathed, biting her lip.

Stiles followed her gaze over his shoulder. To where Derek stood in the doorway, looking like he’d been gutted.

“I’ll give you two a minute,” she said, slipping past Stiles. “I’ll wait for you in the car.”

Derek waited until the front door had opened and closed before he crossed the room to Stiles. “Allison isn’t the only one who needs to apologise.”

Stiles frowned. “Like I told Allison, it’s not her fault she has a crazy aunt-.”

“Stiles,” Derek interrupted, voice soft. “I’m trying to say that I’m sorry.”

“I literally have no idea what you’re apologising for. You did even less wrong than Allison did. You let Kate _shoot_ you to try and save my life.”

“If it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t have even been in danger.”

Stiles waved his hands in the air, unable to express in words how much that failed as logic. “Oh my god, no. It wasn’t your fault that Kate took me.” 

Derek looked so pained, so guilty, that Stiles just wanted to wrap him up in a hug and tell him it was okay until he finally believed it. He thought it might work, until Derek dropped the next bombshell of the day.

“Kate took you because she knew that I care about you.”

“Oh,” Stiles said, his brain pretty much offline. “But what about JJ?”

Derek frowned. “What about him?”

“If she wanted to take someone she thought you cared about, why didn’t she take JJ?” It didn’t make any sense. Kate knew that Stiles had a twin; it wasn’t a case of mistaken identity. “Kate saw us hanging out a couple of times. I know you asked me out, but you were sleeping with JJ for like, a month.”

“Stiles,” Derek breathed, touching Stiles softly on the shoulder and forcing him to drag his eyes away from where they’d been really intensely looking at the preserve out the window, the rug, the couch, anywhere that wasn’t Derek. “I slept with JJ three times.”

Stiles did what he suspected was an awesome fish impression. “What?”

“I put an end to it, after the night you heard us. I told him I’d be running with you. He was a jackass.”

Stiles could imagine exactly what JJ had said about him and why Derek shouldn’t be seen with his stupid, spazzy, ‘little’ brother.

“But why did you want to see JJ?”

“He knows how to contact Cora,” Derek said with a sad smile. “I wanted to send her a message, tell her that she’s welcome to come to Beacon Hills any time she likes. That I want to see her, and that I’d make sure our mom didn’t know if she didn’t want to come home for good. JJ was…”

“…being a jackass about it?”

Derek nodded. “I wanted to explain, when I came to see you at Scott’s,” he added, mournfully.

“Oh,” Stiles said. “I guess I’m kind of a jackass too.”

That startled a small, surprised laugh out of Derek. “Yeah, but I _like_ you.”

His chest suddenly felt at least three sizes too small.

“That’s why she took you,” Derek said, impossibly even more sombre than before. “She’s hunted me, my family, long enough to know me. She knew how I felt, _feel_ , about you and that I’d come for you. That I would do anything to try and save you and that if I failed, if anything happened to you because of me, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. She wanted to use you to make me suffer and she did. You were hurt and it was because of me.”

Derek took a step back, face so serious and sad and guilty and Stiles was lost for words. He was so full of emotions he couldn’t even start to process at the implications of what Derek had said, he thought he might actually choke on them. He opened his mouth and closed it again trying to find something, anything, to say.

“I’ll give you all the space you need,” Derek promised, though it looked like it was his own personal torture. “And if you don’t want anything to do with me, even just as friends, then I’ll understand and respect your decision.”

“Derek, wait,” Stiles said, though he still hadn’t found the words he wanted as Derek started to walk away. All he knew was that he didn’t want Derek to leave looking more defeated and broken than he had when he’d been shot.

“See yourself out. Allison’s waiting,” Derek said over his shoulder, then he was gone.

//

Stiles made Allison drive him back home and refused to say anything about what had happened in the Hale house after she’d left. She didn’t push.

When he got home, he stripped and crawled into bed and passed out. When he finally woke up it was dark outside and Scott was sitting on his floor, TV on mute as he played on the playstation.

“You okay, dude?” Scott asked, even though Stiles was pretty sure he’d given no indication that he was awake. Scott had a freaky accurate Stiles-sense.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, sitting up and drinking the glass of water someone – probably Scott – had left by his bed.

“Are you ready to talk about it?” Scott asked, pausing the game and turning around to face Stiles.

Stiles wanted nothing more than to talk to Scott about it. Werewolves, Allison, _Derek_ ; but Stiles thought about what Allison had said. Derek trusted Stiles, not just with his secret but his entire family’s. Allison too.

“Not really.”

He couldn’t betray that. He _wouldn’t_.

Scott nodded, accepting Stiles’ response without question even though he obviously wasn’t happy about it. “Pizza?”

“Sure,” Stiles agreed, though he didn’t feel hungry at all.

//

A week passed.

Stiles spent a lot of it in bed either sleeping or reading one of the many books about werewolves that Allison brought him, hiding them under his covers whenever his dad or Scott came in to check on him, which was pretty much all the time.

JJ avoided him like the plague, despite the fact that his dad looked like he was either going to kill JJ or burst a blood vessel every time JJ walked out of a room as soon as Stiles walked into it. Stiles tried to reassure his dad that he really didn’t care, because he was totally happy with never having to see JJ again and seriously didn’t want his dad to have a heart attack over it.

The investigation into the murders and his attack was being wrapped up. The medical examiner had ruled Kate’s death a suicide. His dad wasn’t bringing any charges against Allison for aiding Kate by not coming forward with her suspicions about Kate, because she shot Kate to save Stiles. He also wasn’t bringing any charges against her for the shooting. The homemade claw had been matched to all the deaths in Beacon Hills and Beacon City.

His dad was still laboring under the delusion that Stiles didn’t remember what happened that night in the preserve. When they’d gone back to the hospital for a check up the doctor had told him that Stiles might never recover his memories of that night, thanks to the two head wounds and one extended black out.

Stiles had no intention of correcting him, even if it did mean that his dad was in full hovering mode, afraid that Stiles would suddenly remember something that was either useful, or seriously traumatic, which would have been fine if Stiles wasn’t fully into the trauma part.

The nightmares starring Kate Argent’s manic grin and Derek Hale dying weren’t coming as often, but they still had him waking up in a cold sweat every so often. Sometimes he’d catch Scott staring at him, trying to work out what Stiles wasn’t telling him and why he was lying to his dad. Scott didn’t press him to spill his guts, or his secrets, and it just made Stiles feel even shittier about it.

He wouldn’t betray Derek, or Allison’s confidence, though. He couldn’t.

//

"Jesus, fuck," Stiles gasped, clutching his chest, the nightmarish spectre of Derek as a wolf, bloody and pale and dead, still fresh behind his eyes. "Are you trying to scare me to death?"

JJ was sitting in Stiles' desk chair, spun around to face Stiles' bed and apparently trying to kill him with a death glare while he slept.

JJ smirked.

He was seriously tempted to punch his twin in the face again. “Where’s Scott?” he asked instead. His clock said it was just after eight and Scott was still hovering like a mama bird whenever he wasn’t at work.

“How the fuck should I know?” JJ sneered.

“Because I seriously wouldn’t put it past you to try and drown him in the tub.”

The look of consideration on JJ’s face brought the temptation to reintroduce JJ’s face to Stiles’ fist very close to being a reality. Only he didn’t think his dad would forgive him a second time, so he took a deep breath instead and ground out, "What do you want?"

JJ stood up, crossing the room to loom over him. "Dad won’t shut up about me talking to you."

Stiles blinked. "About?" his mouth asked, totally without his permission. Whatever the fuck his subconscious thought, he didn't want to know.

JJ gave him a withering look. "That some crazy person kidnapped you and you had to spend the night in the hospital,” he listed, flat and dismissive, like he was talking about last week’s weather. Old news. “He’s making a really big thing about me not coming to visit."

Stiles’ heart thundered behind his ribs.

It wasn't like he'd been expecting any sort of brotherly concern from his twin, but still. It was one thing to think your twin didn't give a crap about you, it was a whole other one to know for a fact he didn't give a crap that you'd almost been brutally murdered.

"You're not dead,” JJ said into the stunned, silent, void. The _duh_ under his words was barely even subtext. “And dad said you were going to be fine. I don’t see why he expected me to drop what I was doing to come see you be fine. It’s not even like you deserved a visit, not after what you did to me.”

JJ gestured at his face, the only hint of their fight a ghost of old, yellowed, bruising around JJ’s eye.

Stiles closed his eyes and started to count to ten. He made it to three. "So why are you here then?"

"To shut dad up," JJ huffed. “Obviously.”

"Well, now you've seen me,” he said, gesturing at himself before waving at the door. “So you can fuck off and not come back now."

"Suits me. Why'd I want to hang around a loser like you, anyway?” JJ scoffed, wedging his hands into the pockets of his dumbass painted on skinny jean. “Scott's welcome to you."

"Whatever, JJ.” Stiles rolled his eyes, hauling himself out of bed and shoving past JJ to get to his dresser. “I couldn't give less of a crap right now what you think. I hope the door hits you in the ass on the way out."

Stiles grabbed some clean clothes and carried them into the bathroom he shared with JJ, locking the door behind him. Under the safety of the steaming hot spray he groaned out his frustration into the tiles until he could get his shit back together.

“Families of choice,” he told his fogged up reflection as it stared sadly back at him.

Now he knew. Knew that choosing Scott over JJ had been the right call, that he and JJ would never be anything to each other except two people who had the same parents. Knew that he could never and should never try to rely on him.

“Families of choice,” he told himself again as he dressed. “Sometimes we get stuck with shitty blood, so we make our own families. Better ones.”

He caught sight of his reflection in the mirror again as he unlocked the bathroom door. He saw the first signs of a smile and thought that maybe everything would be okay. Or as okay as they could be in a world that contained werewolves and hunters and crazy centuries-old blood feuds.

The good feeling lasted all the way back to his room, and then evaporated in a puff of JJ-shaped smoke.

“I thought I told you to get out and not come back.”

JJ turned from where he was poking about on the top of Stiles’ dresser. He would have been concerned but other than his photos of Scott and mom, everything else on there was mostly junk.

Then JJ held up the only other thing that wasn’t junk. An animal adoption pamphlet from Dr. Deaton’s waiting room: a print out of the photo Stiles took on his phone of Derek wearing the kitten he rescued from the tree like a fluffy, yowling hat clipped to it.

Stiles’ stomach clenched.

He’d been trying really fucking hard not to think about Derek. Not that it had helped. It was impossible to stop thinking about him. Not just about being a werewolf, or how he’d nearly died in front of Stiles, _for_ Stiles, but what he’d said. The hopeless and dejected way he’d promised to give Stiles space, to honor whatever decision he made. The decision Stiles had been working really hard at not making, not even thinking about.

"Why was Derek in the preserve with you?" JJ demanded, waving the pamphlet.

“That's what you care about?” Stiles snapped, snatching it away. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I’m not leaving until you tell me.”

“What the fuck does it matter to you?”

JJ crossed his arms over his chest.

“You were just using him for sex.”

It was so fucking typical. JJ only ever gave a crap about a toy he’d discarded if it looked like someone else he didn’t want to have it was interested. At least it really hammered home Stiles’ relief at not having to even try to play nice with JJ anymore.

JJ raised an eyebrow. Stiles was seriously tempted to try and rip it off his face.

It wasn’t a moment he wanted to relive again, not even the minus-werewolves edit, because that meant thinking about Derek and just how much he still wanted him, but he knew what JJ was like. Stubbornness was a Stilinski family trait, after all.

He threw his hands up in the air in defeat, “Because Kate was going to frame him for my murder.”

“You?”

Stiles nodded and came face to the face with the reality he’d been pretending he never had to face. “She wanted it to be someone he cared about. To really make him suffer.”

“So she thought you were me,” JJ assumed with a careless shrug.

Stiles saw red. “You have got to be fucking with me,” he shouted, shoving his clenched fists in his hoodie pockets before he tried to throttle JJ for the same old bullshit.

JJ shrugged again. “It is what is, SS. It was me Derek was sleeping with, after all.”

Stiles laughed, barely able to stop at the affront on JJ’s face. Apparently he hadn’t gotten the memo that if they weren’t even pretending to like each other any more, all bets were off. “The only thing it is, you ass, is you being wrong. So what, you fucked him three times, over a month ago? She took me. _Me_ , because Derek likes me.”

If he had a camera he could have turned JJ’s face into the most amazing ‘does not compute’ Tumblr meme. “No he doesn't,” JJ finally stuttered out, the least confident Stiles had heard him in years.

He crossed his arms over his chest and raised his chin. “Then why did he ask me out?”

“You’re not his type,” JJ said but it sounded way more like a question than the last time he’d made that declaration about Stiles and Derek.

It looked like JJ’s entire worldview was crumbling around him and it was maybe the best thing to come out of the whole clusterfuck. JJ finally facing the reality that he wasn’t as shit hot as he thought he was.

“His type is funny, and smart, and caring, and not a totally self-absorbed jackass. I’m his type. I am one hundred percent his type.”

And Stiles had rejected him.

His perfect guy.

He’d rejected his perfect guy because he was afraid that one day he’d regret choosing Stiles over JJ. JJ who he’d only slept with three times before dropping him for being the biggest douche-canoe on the west coast.

His perfect guy who’d been willing to die to try and save his life. Who was so into him that even Kate Argent, the crazy fucker, had seen it.

Stiles was an idiot.

“I’m his type and he asked me out and I’m going to say yes,” he said, pushing past JJ, grabbing his car keys and running down the stairs.

He climbed into the Jeep and hoped it wasn’t too late.

//

Stiles knocked on the front door to the Hale house, and when Derek didn’t answer, he kept on knocking. If he had to get in the Jeep and come back later there was a good chance that he was going to chicken out, and that would be almost as dumb as turning Derek down in the first place.

“Stiles?” Derek said, stepping around from the side of the house. He was dressed in old jeans that were worn thin at the knees and hems and a wife-beater that might have been white to start with, but was covered in dirt. “Is everything okay? I was working out at the bottom of the yard.”

Derek’s shoulders were glistening with sweat, well defined biceps practically rippling and his collarbones poking out from under his shirt like dirty little teases. Stiles wanted to lick him all over.

Derek’s nostrils flared and his hands fumbled with the rag he was wiping them on, eyes going wide for just a second.

Stiles was confused for a moment, and then he remembered Derek had a super nose. _Jesus_ , what if he could smell arousal? Another minute or two and it’d be pretty obvious that Derek was making Stiles pop a boner, but there were some things that needed to stay between a dude and the inside of his pants until he was sure he wasn’t going to be rejected.

Stiles took a deep breath. It was now or never.

“You know how you said that you’d give me as much space as I wanted?” he asked.

Derek’s face fell, his hands dropping to his sides, dirty rag hanging loosely from his fingers. “If that’s what you want, then-.”

“What if I want the opposite?” Stiles said with a shaky breath. He curled his fingers up into his hands, trying to stop them from shaking.

What if Derek had changed his mind? What if he’d decided that after Stiles rejected him like a jackass that the best thing to do was move on and he’d missed his chance? 

Only Derek took a step closer, then another. “What do you mean?”

Maybe he hadn’t missed his chance after all. Stiles met Derek in the middle, moving so he was close enough to reach out and touch, and then did. Curling his fingers around Derek’s and rubbing his thumb over the back of his knuckles. “I mean, I don’t want you to stay away and I don’t want us to be just friends. I want _you_.”

“I thought you didn’t want this,” Derek said, hand turning over under Stiles’ to thread their fingers together, his voice tentative and hopeful. 

“No, this is what I wanted from the start. I was just being a total dumbass, thinking I couldn’t have it.”

“What changed your mind about JJ?”

“When I told him that Kate had taken me because she wanted to hurt you, he just assumed that she’d meant to take him and he was wrong. He was so fucking wrong because you like me, you _really_ like me, so much that Kate took me; that you let her shoot you. You let her shoot you with a bullet that could have killed you, that almost did. You were willing to _let her kill you_ to try and save my life. If that isn’t enough to make me believe that you are really into me, that you like me for me not just as some sort of JJ replacement, then there is literally no hope for me. And maybe there isn’t because it’s taken me over a week to realize that I’ve been so stupid but I really don’t want there to be no hope, because I was kinda hoping you still wanted to go on that date,” Stiles breathed, whole body shaking. “With me.”

Derek closed the last of the distance between them until they were touching from chest to toes and Derek reached up with his free hand, cupping Stiles’ face oh so gently. “Dinner and a movie?”

Stiles grinned, curling his hands around Derek’s waist, the feeling of the warm, sweat-damp skin under his hands making him giddy. His perfect guy still wanted him and he was allowed to touch. “Tonight?”

Derek nodded, leaning in to press his forehead to Stiles’, his smile blurry but impossibly wide and happy in Stiles’ vision. “Tonight.”

Stiles slipped his hands around to the small of Derek’s back and manfully resisted the urge to slide them lower to Derek’s ass. “You know what else I was hoping?”

“What?”

Stiles swallowed. “That you’d kiss me.”

“You sure?”

“If I’d been less of a moron, you’d have kissed me goodnight at least a week ago,” he chuckled. “I’m sure.”

Then he pressed forward until Derek met him halfway, and they were kissing, slow and tender and all _his_.

**_.epilogue._ **

“You’re so lame,” JJ said passing by the living room as Stiles checked the time on his phone again.

For maybe the thirtieth time in the last fifteen minutes.

“You’re just jealous that-” Stiles shot back, mouth snapping shut halfway through his epic burn, because he could hear something pulling into the drive.

Stiles vaulted over the back of couch, almost tripping over his own feet as he called over his shoulder, "I'll get it!"

He'd recognise the sound of Derek's porn car anywhere.

Stiles yanked open the door to find Derek already standing on their porch, grinning like Stiles was the best thing he'd ever seen. The last time Stiles had seen him was to go to the midnight screening of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. After, Derek had driven to Santa Rosa, the latest Hale pack base, for Christmas-slash-his birthday. Now he was back for New Year’s Eve and Stiles' birthday after cutting out on his family after their traditional New Year’s Eve dinner and Stiles was so happy to see him after thirteen days apart that he was actually feeling a little sick with himself.

"You're back," Stiles said anyway, deciding he didn’t give a shit how obvious a statement it was or how disgustingly cute he was being.

“It’s a little late, but Merry Christmas,” Derek said, pulling an arm from behind his back to hold a piece of mistletoe over Stiles’ head.

Stiles grinned up at it for a moment, marvelling in the fact that his boyfriend was awesome and there had to be some sort of winning at life prize for getting to make out with Derek Hale under mistletoe… _Wait_. "Isn't this stuff like, super dangerous for you guys?"

Derek flicked one of the leaves. "Plastic."

"Oh,” Stiles breathed an internal sigh of relief. And maybe a little external one too. “Well that's totally cool then."

He met Derek halfway for a kiss that went from gentle and chaste to hot and heavy pretty quick. Derek had totally missed him as much as he’d missed Derek.

“Hey,” Derek panted, when they finally gave in to the totally stupid need to breathe.

“Hey.”

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Stiles offered, grossed out on his own loved up-ness and enjoying every second of it. He leaned in, brushing his lips back over Derek’s. “And this.”

“What about one for me?” JJ interrupted.

Stiles rolled his eyes and groaned.

“Keep on dreaming, JJ,” Derek shot back without missing a beat, pressing his lips back against Stiles’ for a lingering kiss.

“But it’s my birthday,” JJ said with a distinct whine to his voice. Stiles turned and was in no way surprised to find a) JJ was pouting, b) he had finished getting ready for his NYE party and was in painted on trousers, eye liner and as shirt so tight it showed his nipple piercings and c) was standing against the stairs in a _don’t you want to come and fuck me_ pose.

Derek totally ignored JJ, and Stiles gave him a mental fist pump of glee. He looked at Stiles in confusion instead. “I thought tomorrow was your birthday?”

“Tomorrow is _his_ birthday,” JJ sneered. Stiles rolled his eyes again, because JJ was so fucking predictable, Stiles knew exactly where this was going. “Didn’t little brother tell you? I’m a year older.”

“For a whole 23 minutes,” Stiles explained, face showing exactly what he thought of JJ’s ridiculous gloating. “JJ was born at 11:51pm on December 31st.”

“And so you were born on January 1st.” Derek finished.

“Exactly.” Stiles nodded. “You’ll be surprised to know that JJ likes to be a jackass about it.”

Derek snorted in amusement.

“I’m just telling it like it is,” JJ said, totally missing the fact that his audience wasn’t buying his bullshit.

“I feel as though you’re doing the exact opposite of telling it like it is,” Derek said, tugging Stiles in close and kissing his forehead, “but seeing as how it’s only Stiles’ birthday that matters to me, I don’t really care that much.”

“Preach it, boo,” Stiles beamed, tilting his head up to give Derek a kiss on the nose.

JJ made a vomiting sound. “I still can’t believe you chose him over me.”

Stiles grinned even wider and Derek’s hand was creeping down to his ass.

“Annnnnd that’s our cue to go,” Stiles said, slipping out of Derek’s grip, because while he was so on board with mentally scarring JJ for life, he didn’t want to give him a free Derek show to do it. “You have an obnoxious New Year’s-stroke-birthday party to go to that dad is totally going to break up, and I have an early birthday present to unwrap.”

Stiles leered at Derek extra hard, just in case JJ wasn’t getting it. 

Derek just laughed as JJ sputtered in outrage, face turning an unflattering red. “Got your stuff?” he asked.

Stiles snatched up the backpack that had been by the door since early that evening and pulled Derek out the house by the hand, calling over his shoulder to JJ: “Don’t wait up!”

After nineteen years of having nothing over JJ, Stiles still wasn’t over using his winning Derek to torment JJ. Even after five months together the novelty hadn’t worn off, if anything it had gotten better, because JJ had declared that Derek would get sick of Stiles after a couple of weeks.

“I really did miss you,” Derek growled, pinning Stiles to the door of the Camaro and getting seriously reacquainted with the inside of Stiles’ mouth. Not that he was complaining. Like, at all. “But we don’t have to go straight to mine. It’s New Year’s, we could go to a party, if you wanted.”

“Boo,” Stiles laughed, smoothing his hands over Derek’s waist, “I was not kidding about unwrapping my present.” He leaned in and nipped at Derek’s jaw, before breathing in his ear. “I’m done waiting. I want you to fuck me.”

Derek swallowed. Audibly. “Are you sure?”

“Very sure.” Stiles nodded, sneaking a hand down between them to palm Derek’s dick through his jeans. “Don’t get me wrong, your fingers are _awesome_ , but I’ve been thinking about this since you left town and if I don’t get it in me, then I might actually cry.”

Derek whimpered as Stiles traced the rapidly hardening line of his dick, still giddy with the knowledge that he could turn Derek on so easily.

Stiles swallowed down the smug grin that was desperate to burst out and pouted instead, looking up at Derek from under his eyelashes. “You don’t want to make me cry on my birthday, do you?”

“It’s not your birthday until tomorrow,” Derek choked out, hips pushing into Stiles’ hand.

Stiles manfully repressed the urge to crow. “Technically, it’s in about two hours, and I’d really like to see it in with a _bang_ ,” he said, waggling his eyebrows, before turning serious. “If you want to fuck me, that is.” Stiles added, because consent was a two way street and Derek had could not have been more awesome about moving at Stiles’ pace from making out, frottage and handjobs through to blowjobs and fingering.

“I want to,” Derek said, leaning in to brush his lips across Stiles’. “I didn’t want to pressure you.”

“And you totally succeeded in your mission to not pressure me into sex. There has been no pressure, none. Our relationship is a pressure free environment. And now I am ready. I am so, so ready. I cannot stress how ready I am. We’re talking fucking myself on my own fingers every night you’ve been away and wishing it was your dick, ready.”

Derek made a noise like he was choking on his own tongue, cheeks flushing a bright and adorable red. “Yes. We can-,” Derek broke off, taking a deep breath. “One day, I want to watch you doing that. Right now, we need to go or I’m going to do something on the Sheriff’s driveway that’s going to get us arrested for public indecency.”

Stiles pushed away from Derek, pointing at him as he made his way around the car to the passenger side. “Never mention my dad in the same sentence as us having sex ever again.”

Derek looked across as Stiles from the driver’s seat as he climbed in. Stiles braced himself as Derek gave him his _you’re not the only one who can be a little shit_ grin. “I don’t know, I think the idea of your dad catching us having sex is just the right mental image to kill my hard-on enough to drive us home.”

Stiles made a barfing noise as Derek turned the engine over and pulled out the drive. “There is so much wrong with you, I don’t even know where to begin. Forget your hard-on, you’re going to be lucky if my dick ever works again now, let alone tonight.”

“I don’t know,” Derek laughed, reaching over and reminding Stiles that payback was totally a thing, and pulling exactly the same move he’d used on Derek against the Camaro. “I think I can get you _up_ to the challenge.”

“You should probably stop that,” Stiles said, even as his body contradicted him by pushing his hips up into Derek’s hand.

Derek quirked an eyebrow. “Oh really?”

“I mean, unless you want me to blow my load in your car, then totally carry on.”

Derek’s hand tightened on the steering wheel hard enough to make the leather creak. The hand that had been making Stiles a little too happy in his pants gave him one last amazing, torturous, squeeze before sliding over to rest on his thigh. Stiles twined his fingers through Derek’s and lifted their hands to press a kiss to Derek’s wrist.

“I missed you,” he said. “And not just for hot sweaty naked times. You’re still coming to the awkward family birthday dinner tomorrow, right? Dad got me Jurassic World for Christmas, and I thought we could have a _velociraptors yay_ marathon after?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.” Derek glanced over at him, smiling softly. “I missed you too. It’s good to be home.”

Stiles was out of the car as soon as Derek parked in front of his house, grabbing his backpack from where he’d shoved in the backseat to dig out his key as Derek collected his stuff from the trunk.

“Home sweet home,” Stiles announced, unlocking the door and flicking the entranceway lights on.

“Upstairs,” Derek said crowding up behind Stiles, kicking the door shut after them and dropping his duffle bags next to it.

“Not going to offer me a drink?” Stiles trolled, leaning back into the hot, solid line of Derek’s body and grabbing Derek’s hands at his waist and holding them there before he could call Stiles’ bluff and pull away.

Derek grinned into the curve of Stiles’ neck, before sucking a hard, wet kiss on the sensitive skin there. “You want a drink or my dick?”

Derek rolled his hips against Stiles’ ass. Stiles moaned, pressing back into him. “Dick. Definitely dick.”

“Good answer.” Derek spun Stiles around and he was grinning like a shark as he pulled Stiles into a kiss that was hot and hard and hungry and so fucking good.

Stiles was probably fucked for life, because if he ever came face to face with an actual dangerous predator that looked like it wanted to eat him alive, he’d have to try and run for his life with a boner. He didn’t even care. Not with Derek biting his bottom lip and sliding a hand under his shirt.

“Are you going to get your ass upstairs,” Derek gasped, when they had to break for air, “or do I have to-?”

Stiles didn’t waste time on Derek finishing the question, just wrapped his arms around Derek’s shoulders and jumped. “Like you need to ask,” Stiles panted as Derek caught him, holding Stiles up against him with large, strong hands under his thighs. “You know exactly how much demonstrations of your wolfy strength turn me on. One day, you’re going to fuck me like this and it is going to blow my mind.”

“Anything you want.” Derek laughed, low and dirty, as his hips pushed forward, rubbing the hard line of his dick against Stiles’ ass before carrying Stiles up the stairs to his bedroom.

“Fuck,” Stiles breathed, as Derek lowered him down on to the navy blue sheets that smelled of Derek and fabric softener. He pulled Derek down on top of him, pushing his hands under Derek’s shirt to rub his hands all over Derek’s glorious abs. “You are so hot. I think I could actually come from just watching you lift heavy stuff.”

“We’ll save that for another day,” Derek chuckled, rolling them so Stiles was on top and pulling him down for a kiss, long and slow and heavy on the tongue.

By the time they came up for air Stiles was panting, his hips rolling against Derek’s, pressing their dicks together through two layers of denim and it was so good, but nowhere near enough. “Naked. We need to be naked now.”

“Yeah,” Derek agreed, before rolling Stiles again.

Stiles giggled, blood nowhere near his brain. “You going to strip for me?”

Derek raised an eyebrow at Stiles before pulling his shirt over his head and dropping it to the floor. His jeans followed, hitting the carpet with a thump and _thank you sweet baby Jesus_ because Derek, like always, wasn’t wearing any underwear.

“Never. Gets. Old,” Stiles said, pushing himself up so he could stroke his hands over Derek’s pecs and suck the head of his dick into his mouth. “Mmmm,” he hummed happily, taking Derek in a little deeper.

Derek moaned above him, stroking his hands through Stiles’ hair before gently pushing him away.

“What?” Stiles grunted. “No, come back. I want to suck your dick.”

Derek tilted Stiles’ head to look up at him with two fingers under his chin. “Today is about you,” he said, and before Stiles could point out that he wanted Derek’s dick in his mouth, he added, “and if you keep doing that, I’m not going to last long enough to give you what you really want.”

“Yeah,” Stiles breathed, dick throbbing at just the thought of Derek fucking him. “Yeah, okay. Fucking today. Blowjobs in the morning.”

Derek laughed softly, his eyes warm as he leaned down to kiss Stiles oh so tenderly. “Let me take care of you.”

Stiles nodded, throat going dry with want.

“Tell me to stop if I do anything you don’t like and I will,” Derek assured, like he did every time they tried something new, as he kissed his way down Stiles’ neck.

“I will,” Stiles promised, because consent was a thing for Derek too, and then let Derek take care of him.

Derek stripped Stiles slowly, and carefully, mapping every inch of new skin revealed with his hands and lips and tongue like he didn’t already know Stiles’ body inside out. He skimmed over Stiles’ ticklish spots, drawing out the ghost of laughter before he moved on, sucked the spot behind his ear that felt like it was hard wired to his dick, pressed kisses to the sensitive spot behind his knees and nosed his way up Stiles’ happy trail.

By the time that Stiles was naked, Derek leaning over Stiles but not touching him anywhere but his lips on Stiles’, he was shaking with the need for something, anything, _more_. Time had slowed down until it had lost all meaning. His whole body was slick with sweat and his skin felt electric, hot and tight in the wake of Derek’s careful, measured touches.

“Derek,” he begged into Derek’s mouth, into another slow and tender kiss. “ _Please_.”

“Shhh,” Derek soothed, pressing soft, wet kisses down Stiles’ neck, chest, stomach. “I’ve got you.”

“Yeah,” Stiles groaned, as Derek’s lips ghosted over his dick, tongue snaking out to lick the trail of pre-come he was leaking everywhere. “Yes. _Fuck_. Derek, please. _Please_. Fuck me.”

Stiles spread his legs and Derek’s finger was there against his hole, slick with lube and pressing in. It was so good it felt like all the air was being punched out of his lungs, the whole world narrowing down to the feeling of Derek’s finger inside him and his breath, hot and damp against his dick.

“More,” Stiles demanded, the sheets clenched in his fists, shaking with need as Derek worked him open slowly, carefully. “ _Fuck_ ,” he gasped as Derek added another and it still wasn’t enough. “More,” he pleaded, opening his eyes to stare down at Derek, “you know I can take more. Come on, Derek, _please_. I want you in me. Now.”

“Fuck,” Derek breathed, resting his forehead against Stiles’ hip and giving Stiles exactly what he wanted, working another finger in.

“Yes,” Stiles hissed, head thumping back against the bed. It was so much better than he when he did it himself, Derek’s fingers longer, thicker and _holy fuck_ , knew all the right places. Stiles arched off the bed as Derek pressed against his prostate, chanting Derek’s name. “I’m ready. _Oh god_. I’m ready. Derek, fuck me.”

Derek eased his fingers out, climbing up the bed to capture Stiles’ mouth in a kiss, sloppy with need and still so fucking good. Stiles fumbled around in the sheets until he found the lube, blindly squeezing it into his hand to curl around Derek’s dick, slicking him up.

“Want to put this in me?” Stiles asked, stroking his hand up Derek’s dick one final time before pulling off.

Derek nodded, panting against Stiles’ neck. “You have no idea what you do to me, Stiles.”

“I know what you want to do to me,” he couldn’t resist, pushing his hips up against Derek’s in invitation. “How do you want me?”

“On your front,” Derek said, pulling back and helping Stiles arrange his shaking limbs onto his hands and knees. “It’s easier like this, the first time.”

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed, resting his head on the bed between his arms and trying to catch his breath. “I’m ready.”

Derek’s pressed along the line of his back, his body a solid wall of heat as he dotted kissed down Stiles’ spine and then he was there, the head of dick against Stiles’ hole.

“Relax,” Derek said softly, hand stroking up and down Stiles’ back, “breathe.”

And he did, because it was Derek and he trusted him and he wanted this, _they_ wanted this. Then Derek was pushing in, opening Stiles’ up inch by inch, and Derek’s dick was bigger than his fingers but it was good. Oh so good and then he was in, all the way in and Stiles couldn’t breathe for how full he was. Full of Derek.

“Okay?” Derek asked, and he sounded as wrecked as Stiles felt.

“Yeah,” he said, rocking back into Derek and _oh god_ he didn’t think it could get any better, but _fuck_. “You should move, I really think you should move.”

“Stiles,” Derek moaned, and then he was moving. Fucking into Stiles with long, deep thrusts until Stiles was shaking, begging for more.

“Harder, Derek, _come on,_ fuck me.”

“Fuck,” Derek grunted, fingers tightening on Stiles’ hips and finally _, finally_ , fucking Stiles hard and deep, his cock brushing over Stiles’ prostate and sending hot, bright rushes of _oh god yes_ through him with every stroke.

“Derek,” Stiles whimpered, feeling the unstoppable wave of orgasm building, rushing closer. “I’m close, _oh god_ , I’m so close.”

“Yeah,” Derek panted, pressing his chest to Stiles’ back and wrapping his hand around Stiles dick, sending him hurtling towards orgasm with every push of his dick and pull of his hand until it was too much and Stiles was coming harder than he ever had in his life, Derek working him through it.

“Come on,” Stiles gasped, pushing back onto Derek’s dick as he fucked him, rhythmless and desperate, “want to feel you come. Want you to come in me.”

“Stiles,” Derek choked out and then he was coming too, dick pulsing in Stiles’ ass and breath hot and wet against Stiles’ spine.

Everything about it was amazing.

“Oh my god, that was literally the hottest thing to happen to me, like, in my whole life, ever,” Stiles panted, collapsing on to the bed and trying to catch his breath as Derek slumped on top of him.

Stiles was still trying to work out which way was up and how his limbs actually functioned when Derek finally huffed a laugh into Stiles’ neck, breath warm and damp against his sweaty skin. “Good,” he said, pressing a kiss to the sensitive spot where Stiles’ neck curved into his shoulder. “Think how much hotter it’ll be when we’ve had some more practice.”

Stiles groaned, his dick valiantly twitching with interest even though the rest of his body felt like it was an over-cooked noodle.

Derek dropped a line of kisses down the back of Stiles’ neck, sending little shivers of want down his spine, before carefully easing out of him. Derek’s hands skimmed down Stiles’ back to his ass as Stiles shifted, face wrinkling.

“Are you okay?” Derek asked, fingers gently brushing over Stiles’ hole, where he felt open and wet and empty. “Did I hurt you?”

Stiles rolled on to his side so Derek could see his face, see the honesty in it, because even though Derek could listen to his heart for a lie, Stiles trusted Derek to his word that he’d never do it without Stiles’ consent. “I’m fine. It just feels weird, empty, and I’m not really loving it.”

Derek nodded, dipping his head down to press a wet, lingering kiss to Stiles’ hip. “That’ll pass. Don’t move, I’ll be right back.”

Stiles did as he was told, stretching out in Derek’s bed and enjoying the view of Derek naked, sweaty, come-smeared, and sporting sex hair, walking across the bedroom to the bathroom. He was sex sore, riding high on orgasm endorphins and had just lost his ass virginity to Derek Hale. Like Stiles was going anywhere ever again.

“Best boyfriend ever,” Stiles crooned when Derek came back with a warm wash cloth and oh so tenderly wiped the drying come from his belly and between his legs.

“Drink this,” Derek said as he handed Stiles a glass of water, with a smirk that said he totally knew and was going to cash in on this one day. Like Stiles cared. Derek could totally have all the blowjobs he wanted if he kept on taking care of Stiles while he was a heap of sex-melted goo.

Stiles chugged down the water as Derek pulled the come-smeared comforter from under him, and by the time he’d dumped everything in the laundry hamper and spread a clean comforter over Stiles and the bed, the glass was empty. “Get in here. I demand post-coital snuggling.”

“You demand it, do you?” Derek laughed, quirking an eyebrow as he crawled up the bed, caging Stiles in his body.

“I do.” Stiles leaned up to steal a kiss. “It’s my birthday, you know.”

Derek looked across at the clock on the bedside table where it blinked 12:15am. “So it is. Happy birthday, Stiles.”

“Hmmm,” Stiles hummed, meeting Derek halfway for a kiss, long and slow and heavy on the tongue. “I already unwrapped my present,” he teased, rubbing his hands over Derek’s pecs. “Now I want to spend some quality time with it.”

Derek nodded, pressing a quick kiss to the corner of Stiles’ mouth before letting himself be manhandled until he was propped up against the headboard, Stiles’ back pressed to his chest, arms a warm, heavy weight against Stiles’ stomach and a his stubbly chin scratching his shoulder.

“I have more presents for you, you know,” Derek said, once they’d settled, with a kiss to Stiles’ shoulder. “They’re downstairs. Though, there is one that doesn’t need unwrapping.”

“You’re totally spoiling me. Not that I’m complaining.”

“It’s not a physical thing.” Derek’s arms tightened around Stiles’ waist. “I talked to my mom over Christmas.”

“Unless your family has some very weird traditions, you were up in Santa Rosa for two weeks, I should hope you spoke to her.”

“About you, smartass.”

Stiles tried not to tense, but knew Derek totally felt it from the way he nosed at the nape of Stiles next. “Oh.”

“Nothing bad,” Derek assured, dotting a kiss behind Stiles’ ear, sending a little shiver of pleasure down his spine over the blind dread setting in at the prospect of Derek talking to his mom about him. “Actually, it was mostly about Scott.”

Stiles sat up so he could turn and frown at Derek. “Scott?”

Derek tugged Stiles back down against him, snaking his arms up and around Stiles’ chest and holding him tight. “I told her about his asthma, the attack he had in the summer and the one last month.”

Stiles didn’t even try and stop the way his whole body locked up with tension at just at the thought of it. Scott had been at the animal clinic when he’d had his second major attack in late November. Dr. Deaton had called 911 and Mrs McCall had called Derek and got him to collect Stiles from college and drive him straight to the hospital to see Scott. The asthma doctor was still trying to find a regime that would actually work for serious attacks, and Stiles was torn between trying really hard not to think about it and worrying about it all the time.

Derek had been a rock star in putting up with Stiles’ increased Scott related neuroses.

“I told her that Scott’s family. That he’s important to you so that means he’s important to me too.”

Stiles curled his fingers around Derek’s and squeezed because he knew it was true. Derek respected Scott and Stiles’ bro Thursdays and pizza Mondays, and didn’t complain when Stiles spent the night at Scott’s and spent the day smelling of Scott’s bed or when he bailed on a date to answer Scott’s bro-mergency SOS texts. He treated Scott like Stiles’ brother, not just a best friend.

Derek rested his head against Stiles’, his breath ghosting over Stiles’ cheek. “She’s going to offer Scott the bite.”

“What?” Stiles squirmed, but Derek held firm, keeping Stiles close even as his heart thundered behind his ribs with excitement and fear and at least a billion other emotions. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Derek nodded. “She wants to meet him first, but it’s just a formality. Scott’s a good guy and he’d be good for the pack. If he accepts, it’ll cure his asthma.”

“And he’ll be a werewolf.”

“Are you upset?” Derek asked, perfectly still.

“No,” Stiles said, relieved to find that he meant it. Derek finally let him go enough to turn around, straddling Derek’s thighs. “I just. I thought, I thought there was a risk with the bite?”

“There is,” Derek agreed, carefully. “But Scott’s a good age and other than the asthma he’s fit and healthy. It’s very unlikely that it wouldn’t take, but all the risks will be explained to him and Melissa. Mom has statistics and everything. He can take as long as he wants to think about it and talk it through with his mom before he decides.”

Losing Scott to his asthma terrified Stiles, enough that he’d woken up more than once in a cold sweat over it, but Stiles didn’t want him to take the bite. Not unless there was no other choice.

“And if he says no?” he asked, because he knew Scott, he knew his brother. He knew Scott would feel the same. He wouldn’t take the risk, not of leaving Stiles and his mom alone, no matter how cool the wolfy superpowers were.

“Then my mom goes back to Santa Rosa and either way, Scott knows about werewolves,” Derek said, with a small, sly, smile. “There’s no going back once he’s been told, no way to make him forget.” He leaned in and kissed Stiles, whispering the next words against his lips. “No more secrets.”

Stiles brain froze. “Oh my god,” he breathed, as Derek tackled him back onto the bed. “Oh my god, we can tell Scott.”

It had been the only point of tension in their relationship, that Stiles was keeping such a massive secret from Scott, not just the existence of werewolves but what really happened that night in the preserve. It was the only secret Stiles had ever kept from Scott and just because he’d accepted it as the price to pay for being with Derek, hadn’t meant that he’d liked it.

Derek beamed. “Happy birthday.”

“You’re the best,” he laughed, tugging Derek down and pressing wet, ecstatic kisses all over his face. “You are the actual best boyfriend in the history of boyfriends, ever.”

“I know you don’t like keeping secrets from Scott, especially not one this big.”

Stiles smiled so hard his face hurt. He was so fucking lucky, even if his heart was about to burst out of his chest with love for Derek, for how he totally got it. Stiles, and his family of choice, and his need for them to know all the important stuff in his life like any family would.

Derek ducked down, burying his face in Stiles’ neck, but not quick enough to hide the flush of red on his cheeks. “I just want you to be happy.”

“I am,” Stiles laughed, wrapping his arms around Derek’s shoulders and hugging him tight, willing him to feel it in every inch of him. “I really, _really_ am. I love you.”

Derek pulled back to meet Stiles’ eyes, to let him see how, against all the odds, happy and schmoopy Stiles made him look. Feel. “I love you too.”

“Know what would make me even happier?” Stiles grinned. “A blowjob.”

**_.end._ **

**Author's Note:**

> Interesting fact: I found out about mirror twins at a Teen Wolf con, when the Carver brothers talked about being mirror twins. The internet told me about the very rare subset that has one twin internally reversed too. 
> 
> Bonus points: There is a Cabin Pressure gag in there, if you can find it. 
> 
> And finally, if you've made it to the end of this, well done I say, well done.


End file.
